In the Headquarters
by BookLoverDutch
Summary: Prequel to Dark Days. Newt and Lauren meet each other, and they discover WICKED's plans. Together.
1. Birthday Present

"Newt. Newt, wake up."

Newt sleepily opens his eyes and looks right in the eyes of his teacher. She is hanging over his table, and she doesn't look very happy. The boys in the class are staring at him.

The teacher looks at him over her glasses.

"Sleeping in maths class is not something I appreciate," she says, a strict tone in each word.

Newt clears his throat, trying not to sound too sleepy. "I'm sorry, Miss," he says. "It won't happen again."

His teacher sighs, obviously annoyed, and stands up.

"All right," she says. "But this is the last time you will ever fall asleep in this classroom. Make sure it will not happen again, or I will make sure you get punished."

Newt nods, though he knows he doesn't mean it. He falls asleep almost every hour; he can't help it, the lessons are just too boring.

His teacher turns around and walks back to the front of the classroom, her high heels clicking loudly on the hard floor. Newt plays with his pen when she continues writing numbers and symbols on a big, white screen.

He has been in the Headquarters for nearly five years now. An organisation named WICKED, the same organisation that is the owner of the Headquarters, has taken him away from his family, at the day he turned eight years old.

Worst birthday present _ever_.

He still remembers how those WICKED guys had thrown him into a car, how his older sister had screamed and cried, how his mother had pressed one last kiss on his forehead before the car door slammed shut. How he realized that he would never see them again.

He arrived at the Headquarters the day after, still scared and confused and with his cheeks wet with tears.

They pulled him out of the car and brought him to a big room with bunk beds, through long, white corridors. There were at least twenty other boys there, all of them different.

Newt remembers himself crouching against the closed door. He was scared of the other boys, scared of the WICKED people, scared of everyone else. He only wanted to be with his family.

One boy had kneeled next to him then, a shorter, brown-haired guy named Thomas, and had started talking to him. Newt can recall each word of what Thomas had told him.

"We know what happened to you. It has happened to all of us. We are all taken away from our parents, kidnapped to this place. I know, it is terrible and weird, but it's gonna get better. You'll see."

And it _did_ get better. He went to school in the Headquarters the next day, the other boys became his best friends, they had a lot of fun every day. But over all of that is still lying that shroud of sadness about his family, though it seemed to have thinned a lot since then.

Newt's thoughts get interrupted by the welcome sound of the school bell; the end of the school day.

_Finally_.

He quickly stuffs his books and notebook in his backpack and hurries out of the classroom. The others follow his lead.

They all want to get away, just like Newt. When the boys reach the doorway, they start to run, just like they do every afternoon; when they put you in a classroom from half past eight in the morning to five PM, you have to grasp each and every free minute you can get.

They dash through the long, white corridors, shouting and dodging passing WICKED people. And when the group finally reaches the glass door that leads to the large place between the sea, the forest and the Headquarters, they hurl outside, still yelling and laughing.

Newt throws his hands up when he feels the cool fresh air.

He loves to be outside; finally released from that strange, white-coloured building.

_For an hour._

Newt already feels himself grow uncomfortable when he thinks about that, but he puts it aside.

For now, he has an hour to make fun and be – kind of – free.


	2. The Brown-Haired Girl

The boys are outside until a loud bell denotes that they have to come inside for dinner.

They are all out of breath and their hair is totally messed up by the wind by the time they walk back into the Headquarters. Newt feels like a belt is pulled too tight around his chest when the door closes behind him. Suddenly, he feels like he is captured again.

He sighs and lumbers after the rest of the boys. They walk past a group of girls on their way to the dining room.

Newt has seen the girls before; they are always in the Headquarters, just like the boys, but the two groups have never been in the same room together. WICKED seems to keep them separate from each other.

Despite that, Newt is curious about the other group.

Are they taken away from their families as well?

Who _are_ they actually?

Why does WICKED want to keep the two groups away from each other?

And then the usual questions that never seem to leave his mind:

Why does WICKED take children to the Headquarters?

Why do they only take the children, but not the rest of their families?

Why do they have to stay there for so long?

What is going to happen next?

The groups walk past each other, all of the girls looking down. One girl in the back attracts Newt's attention.

She seems to be a bit older than the rest of the girls, one, maybe two years older, and she is a lot longer than most of them. Her long, dark brown hair is tied in a tight ponytail. She has a small and pretty face, but she doesn't seem very happy; her dark brown eyes – exactly the same colour as her hair – look sad, and her mouth is nothing more than a straight line.

Newt feels a sudden impulse to walk over to her, though he doesn't really know why.

Unfortunately, everyone just keeps walking, and soon, the two groups have passed each other.

Newt catches one last glimpse of the brown-haired girl before she takes a turn and he can't see her anymore.

**Sorry, short chapter, I didn't have much time to write because, you know, school and homework and all that klunk :/**

**Can anyone guess who that girl is? :)**


	3. Tomorrow And Different

The meal they get is as usual as possible: cooked potatoes, fried egg and nasty, spongy cauliflower.

Newt lets his head lean on his hands and shoves his food over his plate with his fork. He feels tired, and the loud talking of the other boys starts to give him a headache.

"Aren't you going to eat?"

Thomas' voice pulls him out of his thoughts.

"Not hungry," Newt mutters.

Thomas bends his head to him.

"I would, if I was you," he whispers quietly. "You're gonna need it, for tomorrow."

Before Newt can ask why tomorrow would be different than any other day, a woman's voice shouts: "Silence, please!"

Newt looks up. The owner of the voice is standing on the narrow platform in the front of the dining room. She is wearing a white suit – the same colour as everything in the Headquarters – and her red hair is tied in a chignon in the middle of the back of her head.

The boys' murmur immediately stops.

"Excuse me for interrupting you," the woman says, with a friendly and intelligent voice. "I want to inform you that we, the employees of WICKED, have just got the message that we have collected enough money to start the Trials. From now on, everything is going to be different. The changes will start tomorrow."

She steps off the platform and disappears through the door. After a moment of stunned silence, the boys start to talk over each other again.

Newt looks at Thomas, confused.

"How did you know that?" Newt asks.

Thomas grins. "I heard her talking to someone," he says. "She kept saying things about 'tomorrow' and 'different', so I thought it would be useful if I warned you."

Newt smiles, shaking his head. "You're a weird boy, Tommy."

He always calls Thomas by his nickname – he doesn't seem to mind, and the two are like brothers to each other anyway, so why not? The only reason _Newt_ doesn't have a nickname is that you can't really make a nickname out of his name.

"Thanks," Thomas responds, smiling as well. "Now _eat_, shank."

Newt looks up. "Shank?" he asks. "Where did you hear _that?_"

Thomas shrugs. "Alby said it yesterday. I think he heard it from one of those WICKED guys. They use more of those weird words."

"Well, then don't imitate Alby anymore," Newt mutters quietly, so that Alby can't hear him. "You sound like an idiot."

And with that, he puts a potato in his mouth, so that he has the last word.

For now, he only wants to think – and worry – about tomorrow.

What is going to happen?


	4. Changes

The next morning, when Newt wakes up, he is almost afraid to open his eyes. Luckily, he soon finds out that nothing has changed in the dorm where the boys sleep.

He jumps out of his bed and puts on his usual clothes – blue jeans and a white shirt.

The anxiety he felt yesterday has faden out a bit, and Newt starts to grow curious about that whole "everything is going to be different" thing. He starts to wonder what "everything" is.

Apparently not something in the dorm.

At breakfast, everything is remarkably normal, too.

Newt even sniffs at his toast to see if there is poison on it – when an organisation takes you away from you parents, you can expect everything. But also the food is as normal as possible, and Newt doesn't know what to expect anymore.

Just when he starts to grow a bit more regardless – the boys are on their way to the classroom by then – the first change takes place.

Their English teacher, the teacher they are having for the first hour, takes half of the group away, among Winston and Frypan. The rest of the boys stays behind, holding still. Newt can feel that they are nervous as well.

They stand there in the hallway, looking around, not knowing what to do. After a couple of minutes, a man in a white suit walks toward the group.

"There you are," the man says. "We were waiting for you guys. Follow me."

He walks away, and the boys follow him. They are surprisingly silent.

The group walks through the corridors until they reach a white door. The man walks inside, and Newt feels his eyebrows creep up as he sees what is behind the door.

It is a classroom, exactly the same as their classroom but completely different at the same time, and it is half filled with _girls_.

Newt simply doesn't know how to react; he just stands there in the doorway. The man is standing in the front of the class now.

"What are you waiting for?" he asks, gesturing at the tables. "Sit down."

Newt takes a hesitating step forward, and when the man – he must be the teacher – nods, he walks into the classroom. He puts his backpack down at the first free table he sees: a place in the back of the class, next to the window.

"Take your books in front of you," the teacher says, tapping at the screen. "Pay attention and take notes. I won't explain anything twice."

Newt pulls his books and pen box out of his satchel. When the teacher starts to talk, Newt opens his pen box, looking for something to write with.

_Tape, paperclips, eraser..._

But not any pencils or pens or anything like that. How is it possible that he lost them again?

The teacher starts to write the explanation about the phrasal verbs on the screen, and Newt realizes that he has to get a pen, and quick: he totally failed his last English test, and he doesn't want that to happen again.

Without thinking, he turns around to the person behind him to ask for a pen.

He feels his cheeks reddening when he realizes that "that person" is the girl he saw yesterday, the pretty girl with the dark brown hair and the sad eyes. She is scribbling notes on a piece of paper and hasn't seen him yet.

Newt considers turning back around for a moment, but then he clears his throat.


	5. Stupid

"Eh..."

The girl looks up, obviously annoyed because someone interrupted her, and Newt feels his cheeks getting even more red. The girl's eyes soften a bit when they meet Newt's.

"Can... Can I borrow a pen, please?" he asks, a little too quickly.

The girl smiles, and it is one of the most wonderful smiles Newt has ever seen. It seems to make her even more beautiful.

"Sure," she whispers, so that the teacher can't hear her. She takes a green-coloured pen out of her pen box and gives it to Newt.

"Thanks," he mutters quietly and turns around again.

He can hear the girl giggle softly, and he immediately feels like he is the most stupid person in the world. No wonder that she is laughing at him. He must have looked like an idiot.

He sighs and starts to copy what is written on the screen. He can't help it anymore, anyway. Stupid things happen.

When the teacher turns around after a couple of minutes to wipe the grammar rules on the screen, a tiny paper airplane lands on Newt's notebook. He raises his eyebrows and carefully picks the airplane up.

On the paper wing are black letters written in a scribbled writing. It takes a second before Newt can decrypt which words the letters make.

_I'm Lauren, by the way._

That _must_ be from the girl behind Newt. Who else would tell her name to him?

Newt turns the paper airplane around, so that he can see the other wing. _I'm Newt_, he writes.

He looks up to see if the teacher can see him – no, the man is facing the screen – before he throws the airplane back to Lauren. She doesn't respond, but he can almost feel that she is smiling.

He longs to turn around, to look at her, to see that amazing smile again. He grins when that thought flashes through his mind.

_Don't be stupid, Newt_, he says to himself. _You don't even know her. Don't fall in love with the first girl you speak to in five years._

He starts to copy the language rules on the screen again, until he suddenly realizes that he is writing with Lauren's pen. _She has touched this_. Newt doesn't know why that fills him with excitement. It is just a really strange sense on a really strange moment. Why does he give so much thought to it?

Newt sighs, frustrated and confused. He doesn't like things that are new to him. Thanks to WICKED.

The teacher clapping in his hands pulls him out of his thoughts.

"The hour is over," the man says, and without saying anything more, he walks out of the classroom. Newt knows that the teacher for the next hour will arrive in about five minutes, as always.

That should give him enough time to talk to Lauren, but he doesn't know if he dares to. What if he says something stupid again?

Though, in a sudden impulse, he takes a deep breath and turns around to her. Then he realizes that he doesn't know what to say. He feels his cheeks reddening again while he and Lauren look at each other for an awkward moment.

"So," Lauren says when that moment is over, nervously giggling. "Newt."

Newt feels a small wave of happiness when she says his name. "Yeah. And you are Lauren."

_Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid._

She smiles. "I am."

Then she sighs, tucking a curl behind her ear. "This is all... so weird," she says. She has an odd accent, that seems to make her words shorter than they are. Newt wonders where she comes from.

"I mean, it is strange enough to take people away from their parents" – her voice cracks at that word – "and put them here, but I feel like it's gonna be a lot stranger."

She frowns, suddenly absently.

"Excuse me for that. I guess I was just desperately looking for something to say."

Before Newt can say that it doesn't matter, the loud sound of a siren splits the air.

**It's getting cute here! Yayy! 3**

**My boyfriend and I have had this kind of a 'scene' when we didn't know each other very well yet :). It was so awkward but also so cute, and I thought it would be a nice scene for a 'first talk', so that's why I wrote it like this.**

**Have a nice day! :)**


	6. Good Morning

_An alarm._

Newt can feel the sudden panic in the classroom as an unexpected wave; this hasn't happened before. The WICKED Headquarters is, like, the safest place on Earth.

Lauren puts her hands over her ears. "What is going on?" she asks, shouting to come over the siren.

"I don't know!" Newt yells back. "But it can't be anything good! We have to get away from here and hide!"

The other teenagers in the classroom must have the same idea, because they are crowding together in the doorway. They all want to get out of the room as fast as possible.

After a last look at each other, Newt and Lauren follow their lead. They throw themselves into the group and try to get into the corridor. When they succeed, they just follow the others.

Minho got in front somehow, and he leads the mass to wherever they are going. That "wherever" appears to be the boys' dorm.

While the other girls and boys try to catch their breath, Minho closes the door and locks it. He doesn't seem tired or even a _little_ out of breath, to Newt's surprise.

The muffled siren still sounds through the walls, though it is quiet enough to hear the others pant. The kind-of-silence lasts about a minute, and then one of the girls says: "So... What are we going to do now?"

Minho puts his hands in his pocket and leans against the door. He doesn't seem to care about this whole situation at all.

"We'll wait until the siren stops or until we're dead. Easy."

"What do you mean, 'until we're dead'? Who says we're going to die?"

"No one does. But we don't know what that alarm is for, do we? Maybe there's poison gas here and is this room filled with dead bodies in five minutes."

That idea makes Newt want to run away as fast as he can, and apparently he isn't the only one who thinks that. Everyone is looking at Minho – who is still standing there like nothing is going on – with a mix of fear, disbelief and irritation in their eyes.

Then the relaxed-looking boy grins. "Just kidding," he says. "But I _was_ right. We might be dying right now."

Then a loud blast behind the door sounds, making Minho jump forward. He stumbles into Newt, who can keep him from falling just in time. The silence returns, but everyone is staring at the door as if it will come to life and eat them up whole.

"What was _that_?" someone asks.

"I actually don't want to know," somebody else replies quietly.

Another crashing sound follows – it sounds like someone is smashing something heavy into the door – and the group flinches at exactly the same time. Newt feels his heart beating in his throat. What is going on?

He steps backwards when another thing smacks into the door. His hand accidentally touches the hand from the person who is standing behind him, and when he looks up to apologize, he sees that it is Lauren. She seems as scared as he is.

A cracking sound comes from the door again, and when Newt looks up, he can see that it is ajar. A clawlike hand is lying on the doorknob.

The lamps in the corridor are turned off, and their attacker slowly steps into the light of the dorm. He – it certainly is a man, though Newt doesn't really know how he knows that – is on bare feet. The nails of his toes are long and dirty, and his ugly brown pants were probably torn apart a long time ago.

He isn't wearing a shirt, showing his unhealthy thin body and his trusted-out ribs. His left arm is hidden behind the wall.

And his face...

Well, let's say that it will be chasing Newt in his nightmares.

The man's face is almost fully ripped apart, as if someone has slashed a knife on it, over and over and over, and blood and greenish pus is dripping from the horrible cuts. The wounds also cross his bald head. One ear is missing, and the man's lips are gone as well.

The worst are his eyes.

They are so full of insanity that Newt wants to close his eyes against that look, but he doesn't want it at the same time, because he is scared about what the man is going to do.

After a terrible moment of silence, the man shows his teeth – which are surprisingly white, and contain an alarmingly sharp pair of fangs – in a grin.

"Good morning, children."


	7. Bad, Worse, Worst

His voice seems to be the same as the rest of him; rough and raw, as if he washes himself with sand paper.

No one dares to move.

No one, except for Lauren, who shifts her arm almost unnoticeably and grips hold of Newt's hand. He doesn't pull back, but maybe not only for the reason that the man will see it.

Someone clears his throat on Newt's left. _Minho. Who else?_

"Hey, eh, who are you?" he asks with his usual tact. Newt would have kicked him if he wasn't one of his best friends.

The man in the doorway squints. "You know, kid," he says, suddenly speaking quietly, "I don't like that _tone_ in your voice."

He shows his left arm, which was still hidden behind the wall, and the object he is holding in his hand makes Newt and Minho flinch at the same time. The man is carrying a fire extinguisher.

He grins once more before he hurls toward Minho, screaming and lifting the heavy red object above his head. Before Newt knows what he is doing, he is already in moving.

He lets go of Lauren's hand, jumps forward and grabs both of the man's legs. The man falls and the fire extinguisher clatters on the floor, but Newt isn't strong enough to keep hold of him. The man jerks one of his legs free and starts to kick.

His heel hits Newt's jaw hard, and while he yells out in pain and presses his hand against the side of his face, the man escapes and sprints out of the room. Several people kneel next to Newt. They all start to talk to him at the same time.

"Are you okay?" That was Lauren.

"You saved my life, man." Minho.

"What were you doing? You could have died!" Thomas?

All those voices make Newt only feel more miserable; his head hurts and the pain in his jaw still flashes through his face and neck with each and every heartbeat. He moans quietly. Lauren seems to be the only one who heard that.

"Guys, give him some space," she says, fortunately not louder than usual. The people, who had crowded around him, step backwards.

Lauren shoves a little closer to him and lays a hand on his shoulder. Newt doesn't know how or why, but that seems to calm him a bit.

"How hard did he hit you?" Lauren asks, her voice not more than a whisper. _She seems worried_, Newt realizes.

"Not hard, really. I just... I just don't feel too well," he says.

He isn't lying; his headache starts to grow worse than the pain in his jaw. But he doesn't have much time to feel bad.

He can hear other people outside the dorm, and somehow Newt knows that they will try to attack the teenagers as well.

_Come on, Newt, get your ass up_, he says to himself.

He struggles up while the footsteps from the – probably insane – people come closer. A random giggle echoes through the hallway, giving Newt goose bumps. Someone lays a hand on the doorknob, a slender hand with long, black nails, and a woman steps into the room.

She doesn't seem as crazy as the man from just a minute ago, but still crazy enough to be completely unpredictable.

"Hey, come over here!" she squeaks to someone outside the door. "There are _children_ here!"

Two other people, a man and another woman, come into the room. The man is holding a knife – where did he get that? – but the others don't have any weapons and don't seem very dangerous. The woman next to the door waves to the teenagers.

"Hello, little children," she says. She has a strange accent. _German_, Newt guesses, but he isn't sure. "Come say hello to the Cranks."

_Cranks?_ Newt thinks. _So that's how they call themselves? Weird._

The two women burst into laughter. Just when Newt's fear for the Cranks becomes irritation, two gunshots sound and the man and one woman fall to the ground, the front of their shirts red with blood. A redheaded man runs into the dorm, pointing his pistol at the remaining woman.

He can't be much older than twenty years old, but he seems so confident with his weapon that it starts to scare Newt. Then he sees the WICKED guard uniform, and he relaxes.

This man is on the right side. He _has_ to be. Besides, Newt doesn't think Cranks have enough sanity to use a gun.

"Don't move!" the man yells at the woman, who is standing against the door with her hands in the air. "Don't move, or I'll shoot you!"

The woman acts like she hasn't heard him. "Do you have the cure?" she asks.

The man shifts his feet on the ground, gripping the gun tighter.

"What do you mean?"

"_I mean what I said!_" the woman screams. "_Do you have the cure? Tell me!_"

"_No! We don't!_" the man yells back, his face starting to get the same colour as his hair. The woman's eyes soften a bit.

"Then shoot me."

She presses the gun against her forehead and jerks the man's hand backwards, so that his finger pulls the trigger. A shot and a terrible thump sound. The woman slumps down on the floor. She is absolutely dead.

Newt almost throws up when he sees her limp body, but he can hold back. Someone has just committed suicide in front of his eyes.

Another item on the list with terrible things he has seen. Luckily, it isn't a long list.

Not yet.

"Come on, we have to get out of here!" the redheaded man shouts, jerking Newt out of his thoughts. "I'll bring you to the hiding place. You'll be safe for the Cranks there."

Those words finally give Newt the realization that the Cranks were the reason for that alarm. He knows that he should have realized that a long time ago, but his headache seems to slow it all a bit down, as if his thoughts are swimming through thick syrup.

That is the same reason why he realizes too late that the others are running after the guard, and that only he and Lauren are still in the room. They start to run as well at the same time.

When they reach the rest of the group, Lauren asks him: "Are you sure you're okay?"

Newt rolls his eyes. "Yeah, sure, I'm fine. I've just seen how someone killed herself and my head feels like it's going to explode, but I feel fantastic."

He doesn't know where those rude words came from, and he immediately feels guilty.

"I... I'm sorry, Lauren, I don't know what happened to me..." he stutters, but he gets interrupted by three gunshots.

He flinches before he realizes that it is the guard who is shooting at the Cranks, who are coming from left and right. Some of them have knives, but most of them are just running around and screaming or laughing. Another pair of shots sounds, and then the guard tosses his gun to the side.

"I'm out of bullets!" he yells, the panic finally creeping into his voice. "Run!"

They start to run faster, as fast as they can. The Cranks follow them, but they can't keep up.

Suddenly, one Crank jumps from the side and jerks Lauren out of the line. Newt doesn't hesitate and sprints after them.

The Crank grips Lauren tightly, her back against his chest. She is kicking and screaming, but that doesn't help. Newt kicks the Crank in the leg.

"_Let her go!_" he yells. He starts to pull at the Crank's arms.

Finally, he releases Lauren. The two of them sprint after the rest of the group. They are far away, but they can reach them quite quickly.

After a couple of corridors, the guard takes a sudden turn into the staircase. They run downstairs.

It's even darker on this floor, and Newt has to be careful not to trip over his own feet. The Cranks are much farther behind them now; their sounds seem more silently. The shapes of the others turn into a dark room. Newt hears a door close behind him, and then there is a sudden explosion of light, right in front of him. He has to close his eyes a bit against it.

When his eyes get used to the bright light surrounded by darkness, he sees that it is coming from a flashlight. The room is filled with people, and even in the shadows in the back, he can see the letters of WICKED spelled across the chest.

It is completely silent; you would expect that there is at least any sound in a room with so many people, but there isn't. You can't even hear the siren anymore.

The clicking sound of the locks on a door echoes unbelievably loud between the walls. Newt doesn't have to look to know that the guard is locking the door against the Cranks.

A woman's voice sounds through the room.

"David, is that you?" she asks, her voice shivering.

The guard – he must be David – nods. "Yes, it's me. And I've got the subjects."

_Subjects?_ Newt thinks, confused. _Don't those belong in an experiment? Is this an experiment?_

A new wave of pain flashes through his head, and he immediately decides that he is not going to think anymore.

That'll only make everything worse.

**I decided to make this chapter extra long, because the May holidays (well, I guess that's the best translation) are now, so I've got a lot of time to write. You're welcome.**


	8. Net

After what feels like forever, a voice finally sounds through the speaker.

"The Cranks have left. It is safe to leave the hiding place."

Newt, and the rest of the people in the room as well, sigh of relief. It is terrible to be with so many people, in a dark room, while the rest of the Headquarters is filled with crazy Cranks.

About two or three hours ago, all of the guards were sent to the other floors to chase the Cranks away. The room had suddenly gotten a lot emptier.

And everyone had remained silent.

The shock and fear and worry had woven a net that seemed to capture them all. A net that seems to be ripped apart by the relieved voice from the speaker.

A loud murmur of voices splits the air. Luckily, Newt's headache has faded a bit in the time that they have sat there. He and Lauren have been sitting next to each other, the whole time, saying nothing, but understanding each other even without words.

Newt could feel her shock and fear and worry, and he wished all that time that he could do something to comfort her, but he felt too miserable himself and he was too shy to actually _do_ something.

Luckily, it isn't necessary to say something anymore.

Lauren stands up and walks to a small group of girls. Newt watches her stand there, until someone shouts his name.

"Come on, Newt! Let's go!"

When he looks up, he sees Minho and Thomas waiting next to the – now opened – door. Apparently, the two boys can't wait to leave.

Newt walks over to them, and Minho nods curtly when Newt arrives. The three of them start to walk.

The lamps at the first floor have turned on again, but the sight of the chaos makes Newt gasp; he couldn't see this all in the dim emergency light. The walls, which used to be spotless white, are smeared with red. Bodies are spread over the floor, most of them in dirty, damaged clothes, but Newt also sees four or five of them in WICKED uniforms. A few of them are still alive, and they are making jerky moves and are quietly moaning.

One boy – a Crank with brown hair, who can't be much older than Newt himself – is staring at him with big, glassy eyes.

He isn't dead yet, but the bloody stain on his shirt is growing with the second. His dry lips keep forming the same word, over and over and over.

"Please, please, please, please, _please..._"

Then the Crank makes a rasping sound, and his eyes roll into his head. His chest falls and doesn't rise again.

Newt turns away, collapses with his hands against his stomach and starts to throw up. Only when his complete half-digested breakfast is lying on the floor, he straightens his back and wipes his mouth off on the back of his hand.

Great. Now he is feeling terrible in a _million_ different ways.

Also Thomas and Minho don't seem to feel very well about this whole situation; Thomas' face has grown alarmingly pale, and Minho is standing on his left, frowning and looking at the dead people.

Newt walks over to stand next to them, and after a moment of silence, Thomas' trembling voice splits the air.

"They're even scarier when they are dead."

One way or another, Newt knows that he is right.

**Okay, this chapter is a little weird, but don't worry, it'll get better. You'll get a closer look at Lauren in the next chapter. I have decided that I'm going to do that character-switch thing that I did in Dark Days, so...eh...you'll see it in chapter 9! Bye!**


	9. Stay

Lauren is sitting on her bed, her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees.

She is alone in the girls' dorm; the other girls are still in the corridors or in the hiding place.

She had been shocked when she saw the dead – or barely alive – Cranks, and she had run away immediately. She didn't want to see those insane eyes, those dead eyes which seemed to follow you everywhere you went.

Lauren sighs and squeezes her eyes shut.

It all makes her think way too much about her parents. The wall she had built in her mind against the memories, has fallen apart.

Finally defeated, she watches her worst memory like it is a film, tears streaming down her cheeks.

_It was early in the morning when the sound of the door bell rang through the house. _

_Lauren's father – a strong, Italian man named Marc Pallido – stood up from the breakfast table and walked toward the door. _

_Lauren stayed behind, together with her mother. The two of them looked at each other, brown eyes met brown eyes, and for an odd reason, they were both silent. _

_She could hear a man's voice, but it was too quiet to hear what he was saying. Her father's deep voice replied, and his words echoed through the whole house. _

_"What?" he yelled. "How do you dare?" _

_He was furious, that was sure. Ten-years-old Lauren inadvertently flinched when she realized that. If her father, the man who always was optimistic and good and in self-control, got mad, than the man who he was talking to, had said something really bad. _

_Lauren's mother grasped her hand tightly. In that short moment, her mom's tanned face had grown very pale. _

_Lauren started to wonder what was going on. _

_At that moment, her dad stepped into the small kitchen. He looked anxious and angry. _

_Three other men came behind him. Two of them were wearing black uniforms, with white letters across the chest. _

WICKED_. _

_The other man was wearing a white suit. He seemed bored, according to his ugly, bloated face. He looked a bit like a toad. _

_Lauren's father's sad eyes met Lauren's. The young girl didn't realize yet that that was the look of someone with a broken heart. _

_He glanced down, and at that moment, the man in the white suit started to talk. _

_"Mr. and Mrs. Pallido, I am sorry to tell you that your daughter has to come with us." _

_His voice was so monotonous and numb that the full meaning of his words hit Lauren a couple of seconds after. _

_"What? Why?" she asked, feeling the panic creep into her voice; what would she do without her parents? _

_The toad man bent toward her. _

_"Your parents, little girl, are infected with a dangerous virus. It's called the Flare. They'll slowly go crazy, and you'll be with them when they do. It won't be safe for you. Do you want that? Do you want to see your parents go crazy?" _

_Lauren pinched her jaws on each other. She looked up to her father. _

_"Is it true, dad? Are you..." – she almost didn't dare to say it – "Are you going crazy?" _

_Her father bit his lip. He nodded, and Lauren felt her heart break into a million pieces. _

_She was going to lose her parents. She really was. _

_She turned to the man in the white suit, suddenly feeling more mature than she had ever felt. _

_"What is going to happen?" she asked. _

_The man straightened his back. "You'll come with us. We'll bring you to a safe place, with more children who have lost their parents to the Flare." _

_Lauren's father growled quietly when he heard those words, but he didn't say anything. _

_"And we'll bring your parents to a place called the Scorch, with other people like them" – the contempt in the man's voice when he said that was almost touchable – "where they can slowly go crazy without harming any healthy people." _

_Exactly at the moment that an almost invisible smile flashed over the man's mouth, Lauren's father jumped over the table and tackled him. He put his knees on the man's chest and started to punch, while a stream of curses and other horrible words came out of his mouth. _

_Lauren's mother jumped out of her chair. _

_"Marc! Marc, _please_, no! Not now!" _

_She started to pull at his arms, trying to get him off the toad man. Lauren's father pushed her away with one hand. He growled at her like a wild animal. _

_Lauren simply stood there, not knowing what to do. This wasn't her dad. She was sure about that. _

_Then her father blinked, as if he had just woken up from a dream. A shocked expression flashed over his face. _

_Lauren realized that her father was back, but it was too late. The man in the white suit struggled up, wiped the blood off his lower lip and shouted at the two men in the black uniforms: "Take them away!" _

_His creepy-calm tone from just had disappeared; now he was angry. One man grasped Lauren's father's arms and pulled them on his back; the other man started to walk over to Lauren's mother. She didn't resist and let the man do the same thing at her. _

_When the men started to pull them away, Lauren seemed to wake up from her trance. _

_"No! Let them stay!" she screamed, tears suddenly streaming down her face. She ran over to her mother and clung on her leg. _

_"Mom, please, stay," she sobbed quietly, though she knew that her mother couldn't decide what she would do. She looked up when her mother whispered her name. _

_"Lauren," she placated softly, "let go. It's for the best." _

_And Lauren let her go. She crumbled on the floor while the people in WICKED uniform took her parents away. _

_She watched them leave, heard the sound of a car motor, listened when it drove away. _

Lauren wipes the tears off on the back of her hand.

The moments after that memory had been a blur of tears and crying. She knows that she has been pushed into a car, but she doesn't remember anything of the ride. She had cried the whole way, from the Netherlands to the WICKED Headquarters, wherever that may be.

She was ten years old when it happened.

Now it's five years later, and she still misses everything WICKED has taken away from her.

_Her parents. _

_Her home. _

_Her friends_.

The leather boots she was wearing that day are the only thing she has from home. Nothing else is left.

Another flood of tears streams down Lauren's face, and without caring about anything else, she pulls her blanket over her head and starts to sob.

**My parents decided that today was a good day to finally 'refresh' the old bench in our garden, so I nearly forgot to update (my hands are so damaged now, I don't think I can ever type normal anymore :( ) but I thought about it just in time, luckily.**

**Anyway, everyone who has read 'Dark Days' knows that Newt and Lauren are going to be a couple (I'm sorry if I have given away too much for the people who hasn't read it) and... it's going to be interesting in not too much chapters!**

**So, my question is (please answer it) : Does anyone know a nice ship name for Newt and Lauren? I mean, which couple doesn't have a ship name? I was thinking about 'Naut' myself but it sounds a little weird...**

**Anyway (man, I use that word too much), give Newt+Lauren a thought, and have a nice day! Bye!**


	10. Drowned in Tears

But even if Lauren had drowned in her own tears, she still would have to go to school the day after.

So, the next morning, she drags herself out of her bed. Luckily, her eyes aren't red and thick, because she doesn't think she could have had it if someone had asked her about it.

She quickly changes into her clothes and starts to walk to the place where the girls usually have breakfast.

Lauren is glad to see that the dead Cranks in the corridors have been put away – those maniacal eyes are definitely one of the most horrible things she has ever seen. The thought that one of those Cranks could be her father or mother still haunts in the back of her mind. _They wouldn't even recognize her by now. _

The sound of quiet talking makes her look up. Two boys – one with brown hair and one blond boy – come out of a corridor on Lauren's right.

She doesn't know the brown-haired boy, but the other one is familiar: it is Newt, the boy who was sitting in front of her in the classroom yesterday. Though he seems to be cheerfully chatting with the other boy like the terrible things from yesterday never have happened, Lauren can see the marks of fear and worry on his face.

He looks pale, and he has got rings under his eyes, as if he hasn't slept last night. There is a blue-coloured bruise on his jaw where the Crank has hit him.

Lauren remembers the surprise she felt when Newt attacked him, that sudden explosion of a mix of courage and foolishness.

That Crank hit him because he tried to protect his friend, that annoying Asian.

Lauren feels a sudden wave of anger boil up inside her. If she could do that moment over, then she would have slammed that fire extinguisher into the Crank's head, instead of standing and watching.

She doesn't know where that thought comes from, but she is sure that she would.

The three teenagers keep walking, and all that time, Lauren is very aware of Newt's presence. She catches herself on the fact that her back is straighter than usual when she is walking. It's almost ridiculous.

She tucks a curl of her hair behind her ear – she doesn't have her hair in a ponytail today, and the loose locks annoy her – and listens to the younger boys' talking, which is just too quiet and too far away to hear what they are saying.

When the silent speaking slowly disappears, Lauren turns around, surprised. Newt and the other boy have turned into another corridor.

Lauren shrugs and continues her way to the breakfast room.

**Sorry, rather short chapter, didn't really feel like writing today.**


	11. Distraction

After the school bell has rung, Newt walks into the hallway.

He feels a little dreary; their teacher has told them that they couldn't go outside. "That would be too dangerous," she had said.

No going outside means no distraction, and no distraction means no way to forget the things that happened yesterday.

Newt wasn't able to sleep last night. The horrible faces of the Cranks kept appearing in his mind as soon as he closed his eyes. Like nightmares, but when you're awake instead of asleep.

Newt starts to walk, though he has no idea of where he is going.

He passes two people – a man and a woman, in white-coloured WICKED uniforms. He recognizes the woman; it is the woman with the red hair, who had told them that everything was going to be different. The man is broad and bald. He is a stranger to Newt.

The two are quietly discussing something, and while they walk past, Newt hears a couple of words.

"...not a usual Crank attack..."

"...they had a goal..."

"...have destroyed the Training room..."

Without really knowing why, Newt turns around and follows the WICKED employees, as unostentatious as possible.

The man growls. "How do those Cranks dare? Just hurling inside and ruin our properties."

The woman puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down," she says, with her wise and gentle voice. "They're gone now. It's impossible that they had enough left of their brains to make a plan to slow down the Trials. Besides," she adds, "it won't take long to get the Training room ready again. The training of the subjects can start tomorrow, in the beginning of the evening."

_Subjects. That same word again._

Newt longs to hear more, to finally get some answers, but the two WICKED employees walk into a room and close the door, leaving Newt alone with his questions.

Frustration boils up inside him, but he puts it away when he realizes what the woman actually said.

_The training of the subjects can start tomorrow._

As far as Newt knows, he and the other boys and girls are the subjects. He has to warn the others.

_The training will start tomorrow._

**Again, a short chapter, but it is getting interesting! (Do I hear some people sighing "finally"?)**

**The waiting will be worth it! I promise!**

**Bye!**


	12. Training Preparation

The next afternoon, after school, Newt is with the other boys in the dorm. They are sitting in a circle, on the floor.

All of them know about what Newt has heard the day before; he has told them. Not everyone believed him right away, but they started to when some people got taken out of the classroom and got put back a couple of minutes later, one by one.

Newt doesn't know what that means or what WICKED has done with them. Boys are still taken away every now and then, and when they come back in the dorm, they apparently don't want to talk about what happened to them.

So the boys just sit there, in their circle, waiting to get taken away or until the training – whatever that might mean – begins.

They don't even look up when the door opens, for the twentieth time since they sit there.

A boy whose name Newt doesn't know walks into the room and sits down. A woman in WICKED uniform is standing behind the open door. She looks on the piece of paper she is holding.

"Newt," she says, and Newt understands that he is the one to come with her now.

He stands up and walks towards her. The woman closes the door behind him when he steps into the corridor.

They start to walk.

Newt wants to ask a million questions, but he can't, because he isn't supposed to know anything.

_Frustrating. Again_.

The woman brings him to a room on the other side of the Headquarters.

It is a small room, about four square metres, and the light is so bright that Newt has to squeeze his eyes shut. One wall is made of a murky-looking glass.

There are shadows on the other side, but Newt can't see what it is. Perhaps a table?

The woman closes the door behind him. A silent click sounds, and Newt knows that the door is locked.

"Sit down," the woman says, gesturing at the white-coloured chair – the only furniture in the room.

Newt flops down on the hard plastic, which appears to be surprisingly comfortable, and the woman walks over to the area behind the glass. Her shadow is still visible, but it is impossible to see what she is doing.

She comes back after a couple of minutes. She is wearing a laboratory jacket over her uniform, and blue plastic gloves are put over her hands.

When Newt sees the object in her hand, he gulps difficultly.

The woman is holding a gigantic syringe, filled with a transparent fluid. A tiny, black thing, about the size of an ant or something, floats in the middle of it.

Newt feels that he flinches, though he doesn't know why. He isn't afraid of needles. He is only afraid of what the woman is going to do with it.

She smiles – probably to comfort him a little, but scaring him even more instead – and says: "Hold still, please."

She puts a hand on his shoulder to make sure that he can't move, and stings the needle in the back of his neck on the same moment.

Newt pinches his jaws firmly on each other when a sharp pain flashes through his spine and the back of his head. He can feel the fluid slowly streaming into his body.

And then it is over.

Newt exhales, suddenly out of breath, though he didn't know he was holding his breath. He carefully rubs the back of his neck.

A small, hard knob lies on the place where the needle has been stung into his skin. It sends a wave of pain through his head when he presses on it.

The woman gently pulls his hand away.

"Don't touch it," she says. "Follow me."

She unlocks the door and walks out of the room. Newt goes after her. They walk in opposite direction of where they just came from.

Newt clears his throat.

"Where are we going?" he asks. "Why don't you bring me back to the dorm?"

The woman replies without looking back.

"I bring you to the Training room. Everyone has already had their injection. You were the last one."

"But what is that injection thing for?" Newt asks.

He can't help but be curious. Every answer he can get is one question fewer.

Unfortunately, the woman doesn't respond. She walks over to a set of double doors and opens them.

Newt feels his mouth fall open. The place behind the doors is _huge_.

It looks like what Newt remembers to be a gymnasium – his school had one, and he used to be there twice a week – but almost three times bigger.

The walls are high, and ropes and rings are hanging from the ceiling. The left side of the hall is filled with machines, like treadmills and things Newt has never seen before. Nothing shows signs of any destruction.

The woman next to him gestures at two doors in the back of the room.

"The others are already changing clothes. Make sure you are ready in five minutes."

She walks away, and Newt walks towards the left door. He can hear the other boys loudly talking. He opens the door and steps inside.

The room is a smaller dressing room, and it is filled with boys. They are so busy that they simply don't notice him.

Newt walks over to an empty spot, next to the wooden bench.

A neat pile of white clothes is lying on the bench, two white sneakers standing on it. Newt figures that he has to change clothes; at least, that's what the other boys are doing.

He quickly puts the white clothes on, and he soon finds out that he hates the colour _white_.

He must look ridiculous, in that _white_ shirt that's too short at his belly and too loose at his shoulders, and those _white_ sweatpants, which also are too short, so that the _white_ socks around his ankles are visible, and the _white_ shoes with _white_ shoelaces that are too long, so he has to put them in the shoes to not trip over them.

_Yuck. WICKED's fashion choices are horrible_.

Newt knows he isn't the only one thinking that; Thomas is walking around with a disgusted look on his face, trying not to fall over his trouser legs, and Minho looks like he is going to burst out of his shirt – it is way too tight. Newt wonders how he can ever breathe like that.

As if they have had a sign or something, all of the boys walk out of the dressing room at the same time. Newt follows them.

The hugeness of the gymnasium hits him once again, but it isn't so impressive anymore.

The girls are already standing in the middle of the hall.

Newt sees Lauren. She looks pretty – as usual – and her hair is tied in a high ponytail. The white clothes look good at her, and they seem to be exactly her size.

Apparently the boys' clothes are too small and the girls' clothes too large; Lauren is much longer than the other girls, and the others have to be careful not to trip over their pants. The shoes, Newt notices, seem to be the right size at everyone. _Odd_.

When the two groups stand next to each other, a man in the front of the room starts to talk.

"Good evening, everyone."

He doesn't sound like he thinks it's a good evening; his voice is loud and aggressive and his words are curt.

"My name is Dennis. I work here and I will be your trainer for the next couple of weeks. You people will be trained for the Trials. I am not allowed to say a lot about that, but I can tell you that it's not gonna be easy. So I advise you to get in shape."

The man – Dennis – gestures at almost everything in the room.

"Go ahead."

Some of the teenagers take some hesitating steps, but Minho immediately sprints towards the treadmills. He jumps on one of the machines, and the floor part already starts to move.

Newt watches the boy run for a couple of seconds before he walks over to the treadmills as well. He has to start somewhere, right?

Newt hasn't run on a treadmill before, but he soon finds out that it isn't much different from just running. The only difference is that you don't go anywhere.

Newt runs for ten minutes, and then he starts to feel lightheaded. He hasn't had dinner yet, and the last time he ate or drank something was nearly five hours ago.

Just when he wants to stop, Dennis walks over to him. He folds his arms and watches Newt run.

He doesn't dare to quit running; he doesn't know what Dennis will do, but the aggressive trainer surely will call him a faint-hearted wimp and yell at him. Those cold, grey-coloured eyes seem to trepan right through him.

Newt keeps running, even though he feels like he can pass out any moment.

After three more minutes, Dennis nods and finally walks away. Newt quickly presses a button to stop the treadmill.

The world seems to spin around, and Newt can feel his blood rustle in his ears.

Sweat stings in the tiny hole in the back of his neck.

Trying not to faint, he slowly stumbles towards the bench on the side of the room.

**I'm sorry, it took so long to update because it's a long chapter, and I have discovered unexpected homework in my agenda that I have to do before school begins again, so please excuse me.**

**And, have you heard it?! The Scorch Trials' trailer is probably going to be released on May 15! Yaay!**


	13. Déjà Vu's and Swipe Allergies

Lauren is doing sit-ups in a corner of the gymnasium. She tries to stay away from the ropes as far as possible; she is terribly afraid of heights, and she already starts to feel dizzy when she only looks at high things. She doesn't know how or why, but she always imagines herself on that high thing.

A shivering flashes over her back and she sits upright to catch her breath. Someone in the back of the room attracts her attention.

He is far away, but she recognizes the blond hair immediately.

_Newt_.

She wants to walk towards him, but then she sees that something is wrong. He is sitting on the bench, collapsed and with his hands clamped around his ribs.

Lauren wanted to _walk_ towards him, but now she is _running_, though she can't remember telling her legs to do that. A couple of seconds later, she kneels in front of Newt.

She doesn't know where her sudden anxiety comes from; just like when he got hit by the Crank, she feels like she has to protect him.

He looks up, right into her eyes. Brown eyes meet brown eyes, and Lauren feels like she should break the eye contact, but she doesn't, and he neither.

"Are you all right?" she asks, not able to keep the worry out of her voice.

Newt manages a weak smile. He is breathing heavily and his face is pale, but he doesn't seem to feel too bad.

"I'm fine, really. I just... I just ran a little too much."

Lauren feels a weird sense of déjà vu, but she is happy that the last time they had this kind of conversation was much worse than this.

"Okay," she says gently. "Then... would you mind if I sit next to you?"

His smile grows wider, and he responds: "No, of course not."

Lauren sits down on the bench, not too far away from him, not too close. She folds her hands in her lap and looks at them.

_Shit, what do I have to say? I don't think this was very smart_.

She rubs the back of her neck, accidentally touching the tiny, hard knob.

She wonders once again what that thing is and what it is supposed to do. As if it is an answer to her question, Newt suddenly starts to cough.

"Newt? What's wrong?" Lauren asks startled.

When he doesn't respond and his face starts to grow red, she feels panic creep into her body. She grasps Newt's shoulder.

"Newt? _Newt!_" she screams.

He gasps for air once again, and then Lauren feels his body grow limp. She can keep him from smacking right into the floor just in time.

Her vision is blurred with tears and her hands are shaking when she cries out for help.

Newt gets pulled out of her hands and laid down on the floor. Dennis and two other WICKED people kneel next to him while the teenagers crowd around them. They are all surprisingly silent.

The trainer stands up.

"He'll be fine. Take him away."

Then he sees Lauren, who is still shaking and on the edge of crying.

"Take her away as well."

The two strangers nod and carefully lift Newt from the ground. One of them gestures that Lauren has to come with them.

She wipes the tears off on the back of her hand while she makes her way through the crowd. She wishes that she was anywhere but here. Only the shock of what just happened keeps her from screaming of frustration.

But what exactly _did_ just happen?

She dares to ask it only a couple of minutes later, when she, Newt and one of the people in WICKED uniform – a friendly woman named Mandria – are sitting in a small room next to the boys' dorm.

Newt has woken up again, but he still was too dizzy to walk. He has been leaning on Lauren and Mandria half of the way to the room.

Now Lauren and Newt are sitting on a narrow table – the room appears to be a kind of 'first aid' room or something – and Mandria is sticking electrodes on Newt's skin. Lauren shifts on her spot.

"Mandria?" she asks.

The woman doesn't look up.

"Yes?"

"What happened to Newt?"

Mandria smiles comfortingly, still busy with what she is doing.

"He fainted, Lauren."

"Yeah, I already knew that. _Why_ did he faint?"

Lauren is having a hard time keeping her voice calm. Why do those WICKED people never answer questions the way they should?

Mandria sticks one last electrode on Newt's temple.

"We're going to find out now," she says, pressing a button on the small device that is lying next to her.

A lot of black letters appear on the screen, but Mandria picks it up before Lauren can read it. Her green eyes flash over the words.

She frowns.

"Hm," she mumbles. "That's strange."

She walks over to a computer in the corner of the room and starts to type a message. Lauren looks over her shoulder to see what she is writing.

_Subject A5 has an allergic reaction on the Swipe test serum. Keep an eye on the other subjects._

Mandria waits a couple of seconds before she writes:

_I am going to remove the device to activate the Swipe. It will not be possible to remove the serum itself. These effects must be fixed in the real serum._

Then she presses 'send' and the message disappears from the screen.

Lauren concludes that Newt must be 'subject A5' and the 'Swipe test serum' is the stuff that they put into all of them.

But what is that Swipe thing?

She doesn't have time to ask it. Mandria turns around to the two teenagers, tucking a black curl behind her ear.

"Newt, remember the serum that was injected by you this afternoon?" she asks Newt.

Newt raises his eyebrows, probably wondering what is going on, and nods.

"Well, you appear to be allergic to it," Mandria continues. "That's why you suddenly fainted. It has nothing to do with the fact that you had been running for nearly fifteen minutes or that you haven't eaten anything since lunch. I have to remove the device that was in the serum to make it less dangerous if something like that happens again. I can't remove the serum itself, because it is already in your blood."

Newt coughs, a rasping, dry sound, and a wave of worry floods over Lauren, but the coughing stops after a couple of seconds. He clears his throat.

"I'm sorry," he says, though Lauren doesn't know why he would be sorry.

"Eh... What do you mean with 'removing'?" he asks Mandria.

She starts to take the electrodes off Newt's skin. When she is done, she glares at Lauren.

"I mean that you have to go, Lauren," she says, suddenly much less friendly.

Lauren opens her mouth to argue with her, but then she realizes that it's no use. She nods and jumps off the table.

"Bye, Newt," she says quietly.

The left corner of Newt's mouth curls up for a moment, but the half smile is almost immediately gone. He seems nervous, Lauren notices. After one last glance, she walks out of the room and closes the door behind her.

She realizes that it won't help to stand there in the corridor and do nothing, but she doesn't know where to go. The others are probably still in the Training room, but she isn't going back in there today. No way.

She sighs and starts to walk.

_To the dorm, then_.

It is only four corridors to the girls' dorm, but the urge to go back grows with every step. She is worried about Newt.

What are they going to do with him?

By the time Lauren has reached the door of the dorm, she feels like her stomach is filled with tiny bouncing balls.

She growls of frustration. She wants to go back to Newt, but she can't. They won't let her.

She opens the door and steps into the dorm. The room is abandoned.

_Great. I really enjoy being alone with my anxiety_, she thinks sarcastically. She lies down on her bed, clothes and shoes still on.

_I better get some rest_.

And she succeeds. She falls asleep ten minutes later, teased by nightmares about a certain blond boy being tortured by people in white uniforms.

**Another kinda long chapter, you're welcome! I feel like there are more of these coming, for I have a lot of ideas to write about, but school starts again in two days (ugh...) and I'll have less time to write, but we'll see!**

**Have a nice day, everyone!**


	14. Half-Confusion

Lauren wakes up at six o'clock the next morning. That's way too early, but she can't fall asleep anymore.

She is starving, though that's not what keeps her awake. She wants to go to Newt. Wants to know if he is all right.

She climbs out of her bed and quickly tiptoes towards the door. When she reaches the hallway, she starts to run.

Everybody is still asleep this early in the morning, so Lauren can easily sprint through the corridors without anyone noticing her. The steady _thump-thump-thump_ of her sneakers on the ground echoes between the white walls.

When she reaches the hallway where they were yesterday, she realizes that she doesn't know where Newt actually is. She starts her little quest at the boys' dorm, just because that is the closest room.

Lauren opens the door just enough to peek inside, but she doesn't see the familiar boy, so she silently closes the door before anyone can see her.

The next place is the 'first aid' room. The lights in there are turned off. It is absolutely abandoned.

That makes Lauren think. Where did they put Newt?

A bell rings somewhere in the back of her mind.

_The Headquarters has a sick room_.

Lauren doesn't know how she knows that; if she has ever been there, then she can't remember anything of it. Must have been long ago.

She starts to jog, away from the corridor she just came from; though she doesn't know where to go, it doesn't help to go back and go twice past the same rooms. That's just ridiculous and a waste of time.

While running, Lauren notices that the usually white floor has a soft green colour deeper into the building. The doors are the same greenish tint.

_Odd_, Lauren thinks. _I've never been here before_.

On almost every door is a yellow sticker with the words: _Caution. Do not enter_. Lauren wonders what happens here that is so dangerous. She nearly wants to walk into a room and see what is going on, but she figures that it is better to not do that.

She'll only get in trouble. She probably isn't even allowed to be here, deeper in the building.

When she runs past a set of double doors without that yellow triangle sticker, she pauses. The doors seem familiar; Lauren has seen these before, though she doesn't know how or when. She carefully pushes one of the doors open, so that she can look inside.

The large room is lit by dim lamps, and there are two neat rows of beds next to the two longest walls. All of the beds are empty and the white sheets seem like no one has ever touched them.

_All of the beds are empty_.

Or so Lauren thought.

When she squints to see better in the dim light, she sees a figure lying on one of the beds in the back. He's got a light-coloured mop of hair, and he is lying on his back, so that Lauren can see the good-looking shape of his face. She recognizes the younger boy even in the shadows.

_Newt_.

She wants to walk towards him, but then she hesitates.

What is she going to say?

Does she have to wake him up or should she let him sleep?

_Is_ he even asleep?

What if he doesn't want to talk to her?

Lauren mentally gives herself a little pep talk.

_Don't be so uncertain. Just take a deep breath and go._

She steps into the room, but trips over her own feet and stumbles into one of the beds. A loud, cracking sound echoes through the room.

Newt jumps up into a sitting position.

_Shit, shit, shit. I have woken him up._

"Hello?" Newt's hoarse voice sounds. "Who's there?"

Lauren bites her lip, sure that her face is bright red. She struggles up.

"It's me," she says, trying to keep the embarrassment out of her voice. She sees Newt squint in the back of the room.

"Lauren?"

"Yes."

It is silent for a moment before he asks: "What are you doing here?"

His tone is calm and gentle, but the words are enough to make Lauren flinch.

_He doesn't want you here_, a small voice in her head whispers.

Despite that, she persists.

"I... I just wanted to see if you were okay," she says.

She curses inaudibly when she hears how quiet and small her voice sounds. She sounds like a little child.

"Oh," Newt says. It is almost a sigh.

He visibly relaxes. He shows his white teeth in a grin.

"Well, I assume that you don't want to go back yet, do you?"

The sudden change surprises Lauren, and it takes her brain a second to register the words.

"No, I... I guess not," she stutters, her face growing even redder, if that is even possible.

Newt chuckles softly.

"Take a seat, then," he says friendly.

Lauren walks towards him – she almost falls over her own feet again in her half-confusion – and she sits down on the bed next to his.

He furrows his eyebrows while he studies her face.

"I'm sorry if I made you feel like I didn't want to talk to you," he says, as if he can read her mind. "I just felt a little irritated. Excuse me. I'm glad you're here."

A silence follows. After a couple of seconds, Lauren clears her throat.

"So, eh... How do you feel?"

Newt shifts on his spot, pulling his legs under himself.

"I... To be honest, I feel worse than yesterday," he says, looking down, as if he is ashamed to admit it. "They got that device thing out, but the serum is still in my body, and it's making me _sick_."

He spits that last word out with a contempt that Lauren has never heard before.

"It's not fair to be the victim of something what's not your fault," she says gently.

Newt immediately looks up, causing a coughing fit. He moans when the coughing finally stops.

"I'm fed up with it," he growls quietly, his voice sounding even hoarser. "The headache, the fever, the coughing... I'm tired of it. All of it."

Lauren knows she should say something to comfort him, but she can't think of anything, so she just grips hold of his hands and looks at his face.

His cheeks are bright red, but the rest of his face looks pale. His hands are covered in a thin layer of sweat and are unusually warm.

_That poor boy_, Lauren thinks. _He really must feel bad. I wish I could do something to make it better._

She feels her eyebrows bow up in sympathy.

Newt looks up, into her eyes.

"You know," he says, his voice not more than a whisper, "I just keep on complaining, but what I really wanted to say is that I'm happy that you're here."

Lauren smiles, and Newt smiles as well when he sees that.

Before Lauren realizes what she is doing, she bends toward him and wraps her arms around him.

**I actually didn't mean to update today, because it's Mother's Day today (at least, in the Netherlands, I don't know how that works in other countries XP), but I felt surprisingly much like writing, so there you go! Another cute/kinda strange Laurewt (yep, changed my mind on the ship name, what do you think?) chapter!**


	15. Sunshine with a Morning Mood

Everything that makes him feel sick, the headache, the fever, the coughing... Newt forgets it all for one wonderful moment.

It feels so natural, Lauren's arms around him, as if it is supposed to be like that. He hugs her back almost instinctively.

It is an amazing feeling to hold close and to be held close; he hasn't felt like that in nearly five years. He doesn't want to let her go anymore, but he has to when he hears footsteps near the door.

"Lauren, someone's coming," he whispers, though it is needless, because she has already heard the person.

She quickly drops to the ground and rolls under one of the beds.

Newt lies back under the sheets.

Less than a second later, the door opens and a man in WICKED uniform walks into the room. Newt moans quietly when he recognizes the man.

It is a doctor named Samuel, and he doesn't seem to take anyone seriously.

Newt wonders why he has ever chosen to be a doctor; the job simply doesn't _fit_ him. Samuel could better be a paparazzo or something like that. Some job for extremely annoying people.

The doctor walks toward Newt.

"Good morning, sunshine," he says with a mocking smirk. "Slept well?"

"Yeah, fine," Newt growls, not wanting to hide his irritation.

Samuel raises his hands in a defending gesture.

"Whoa, relax," he says, still with that stupid grin. Newt wants to slap it off his face.

"Someone's got a bit of a morning mood."

Without saying anything – to Newt's relief – he starts to measure Newt's temperature.

"Thirty-eight and a half degree Celsius," he reads from the thermometer. He looks up to Newt. "You should stay in bed today, boy."

Newt nods; he already knew that. He really can't go to school or training or whatever they are going to do today when his head feels like it is filled with cotton wool.

"Anything else? Stomach-ache, headache, nausea..."

"Only a headache," Newt interrupts Samuel before he can go on. "And I keep on coughing. Feels like I've caught a cold."

Samuel scribbles something on the notebook he always carries with him.

"You'll be fine tomorrow. The serum only works for two days. It's a test version, to see how your system reacts on it," he says.

Newt sighs relieved; he only has to stay here for one more day. That should be bearable.

"I'll leave you alone," Samuel says before walking away. When he closes the door behind him, Lauren comes out of her hiding place under the bed.

"That guy didn't seem to be very professional," she says, grinning.

Newt smiles. "That's exactly the right way to describe him."

Lauren's eyes flash to the clock in the corner of the room. Newt follows her look.

_A quarter to seven. The time that they usually get ready to go to school._

Lauren must have realized that as well, because she stands up.

"I'm sorry, Newt, but I should go," she says softly.

Newt nods, though he doesn't like the fact that she is leaving. He wants her to stay.

"Bye," Lauren says. She walks toward the door. After waving at him for one last time, she disappears through the door.

Newt lies down again.

He'd better get some sleep; it'll be a looooooong day if he stays awake.

He closes his eyes, and the sleep immediately starts to take his mind over. He is asleep only half a minute later.

**Okay, people, you can relax. Newt is gonna be all fine, the serum only works for two days, and it's a test version, so it's okay. It's all okay. You can breathe easily. No one will die. Yet. *evil laugh* Okay, bye.**


	16. Crazy Ideas

When Lauren walks towards the girls' breakfast room, she ends up in the middle of a group of boys.

They are all scattered in smaller groups. All of them, except one.

It is the brown-haired boy who seems to be one of Newt's closest friends. He is running from group to group, asking something and then going to the next group. Lauren listens curiously when he jogs towards the group that is walking in front of her.

"Has one of you seen Newt?" he asks. His voice is nervous and high-pitched; it would be funny if Lauren didn't understand his anxiety.

The left boy – a black-haired, muscular guy – shakes his head.

"No. The last time I saw him was yesterday, in the Training room," he says.

He sounds relaxed, but Lauren can see the tension in his shoulders. He is as worried as the brown-haired boy.

The person next to him – a rather long boy with a dark skin – snorts.

"Yeah. The shank passed out from running too much. I hope they'll punish him for being such a shuckface."

Lauren doesn't know what a 'shank' or a 'shuckface' is, but it doesn't sound very complimenting. Besides: he is wrong. Lauren has to resist walking towards him and punching him, and the brown-haired boy seems to agree with that.

His face starts to redden, but the boy with the black hair lays a hand on his shoulder.

"Relax, Thomas," he says.

_So that's his name._

"You shouldn't worry that much. It'll be fine."

There is a slight mocking tone in his voice, and Lauren finally recognizes him.

_The boy who got saved by Newt. The annoying Asian._

The brown-haired boy – apparently his name is Thomas – pulls himself free.

"Whatever," he mutters, suddenly seeming absently.

He walks away from the two other boys, past Lauren, but turns around just when he has passed her.

"Hey, I know who you are," he says. "You're Lauren. Newt often talks about you."

"Really?" Lauren asks surprised.

Thomas shrugs. "Yes. He barely wants to talk about anything else. I think he likes you."

Lauren's eyebrows shoot up.

_This is quite a strange conversation to have with someone you talk to for the first time_, she thinks. And then: _What? Newt likes me?_

Thomas runs a hand through his hair.

"Anyway, eh... have you seen Newt?" he asks, almost looking ashamed to ask it.

Lauren nods, and Thomas looks up, surprised.

"Yes, I've seen him this morning," she says. "He's in the sick room."

Thomas' eyes grow big.

"What? Why? How..." he stutters, trying not to trip over his own words. Lauren interrupts him before he chokes in his confusion.

"Apparently WICKED has a sick room. They put Newt there because he had an allergic reaction on that serum stuff what they have injected by all of us. That allergy was the reason why he suddenly fainted in the Training room. I was with Newt this morning. He said he felt sick, but a doctor said that he'd be all right tomorrow," she quickly explains.

Thomas nods. "Okay," he says.

Lauren can't tell whether she has calmed him or made him even more worried.

Thomas clears his throat. "And, eh... where is that sick room?"

Lauren frowns.

"You can't go there, Thomas. We're not allowed to. And, besides, do you want to get too late?" she asks him, but he ignores her question.

"Firstly: how do you know my name? And secondly: I am allowed to go anywhere in this building."

He bends towards Lauren.

"I have been asked to work for WICKED. They are going to teach me how to do that. I think it's time to get some answers," he says, nearly whispering.

Lauren finds herself agreeing with him.

_It is time to get some answers_.

An idea is already forming in her brain. It is a mad and crazy idea, but if it works, she would be able to answer a lot of the questions that are floating in her mind.

With a confident smile, she keeps walking.

She is going to ask it this evening.

**What would it be, what would it be? ;) I can't tell you yet, because I'm uncertain about if you're going to like it or not. I'm not even sure if I like it myself. (Tip: it has something to do with one of Newt's memories in Dark Days!)**

**I feel like Thomas has to be more in this story. He's such a nice character, and he has to join in, don't you think?**


	17. Not Gonna Like

"What did you just say?" the man in front of her yells.

Lauren is sitting in a white plastic chair, in mister Perch's white office. Thomas has brought her there right after training, and had told her that that man was the 'boss' of everyone who wanted to work at WICKED.

Lauren is in the office for one minute since then, and her hope that her plan is ever going to work, is already blown to shreds. Nevertheless, she clears her throat and repeats her question.

"I, eh... I want to work here," she says, frowning when she hears how small her voice sounds.

Mister Perch – the intimidating man who it sitting in front of her – pinches his thumb and forefinger around his nasal bone.

"I am surprised by your courage, Lauren Pallido," he says, nearly muttering. "You're the first subject we've ever had who asks to work here herself. But," the man says, "I can't just accept everyone who asks for the job. There are a lot of people out there who would kill someone to work here."

He sighs, furrowing his eyebrows. Then he finally looks up.

"Do you think you can do it?"

Lauren's heart jumps up. She folds her hands in her lap to hide that they are shaking.

"Yes, sir. I am pretty sure that I can manage."

Mister Perch nods.

"Then the job is yours."

He holds out a hand. Lauren shakes it, surprised at how easy it went. She hadn't expected that she really would get to work at WICKED.

"Your preparation will start tomorrow," mister Perch says. "Half past seven in the morning. Don't get too late."

Lauren nods.

Her new boss gestures at the door.

"You're free to go. See you next morning."

He sounds friendly now, nothing like the impatient, aggressive man he was when Lauren just came in. She wonders if every employee of WICKED is so unpredictable.

Still stunned, she walks out of the office.

Thomas is waiting for her in the corridor.

"And? How did it go?" he asks.

Lauren grins.

"I've got the job," she responds, barely able to keep the enthusiasm out of her voice. Only then, the reality hits her fully.

_She is going to work here. _

_She is going away from school. _

_She is going to be one of WICKED's people._

She exhales shakily, the world around her suddenly blurred. How could she be one of the people who took her away from her parents? Who took all of them away from their parents? _How? _

Thomas' voice snaps her back to reality.

"Lauren? Are you all right?"

She realizes that she has collapsed, her fists pressed against her collarbone, and she straightens her back.

"Eh, yeah, I'm fine," she replies, tucking a curl behind her ear. "Let's go. I don't want to be too late for dinner."

After dinner, when Lauren walks towards the girls' dorm, she comes across the person she would least expect to come across.

_Newt_.

He is just walking through the corridor, his hands in his pockets, and he comes towards Lauren when he sees her.

"Hey," he says friendly.

Lauren smiles.

"Hi. Don't you have to be in the sick room?"

Newt shrugs.

"I felt good enough to leave. Just couldn't endure it there anymore," he says. His voice is still hoarse and he still looks pale, but he looks a lot better than that morning, Lauren thinks.

"Well, I'm happy that you don't feel so sick anymore."

She smiles again, but her smile disappears when a thought flashes through her mind. She clears her throat.

"I need to tell you something," she says, hardly able to conceal that she is nervous.

Newt furrows his eyebrows.

"Okay... Something like what?"

"Something you're not gonna like," Lauren says. She grips hold of his hand. "Follow me."

**Oh, gosh... Lauren's gonna work at WICKED! Did anyone expect that?**

**PS: DOUBLE UPDATE! Surprise! :)**


	18. Until The End Of Time

The two teenagers are standing in an empty corridor, ten minutes later. They are standing in the middle of it, holding hands, facing each other.

Newt listens to what Lauren is telling him.

_She is going to work at WICKED. _

_She wants to have some answers. _

_Thomas is going to do the same thing_.

Newt feels himself grow sad while Lauren is talking.

_She and Thomas are going away. _

_Two of his best friends are going away_.

That is the only thing he can think of. When Lauren is done telling her story, it is silent for a moment. Then Newt looks up.

"Is this really necessary?" he asks, his voice not more than a whisper. "Are you really going to leave?"

He notices that, when he said 'you', he didn't think of Thomas.

Lauren smiles, but she doesn't seem happy. Not at all.

"I'm not going away, Newt. I'm just going away from school, that's all. I'm not even leaving the building. They are going to teach me how to work here."

Her voice sounds comforting and soft, but it doesn't make Newt feel any better. He grips her hands even tighter.

"You have to promise me one thing," he says, looking up at her.

"And that is?" Lauren asks, still with that gentle tone in her voice.

"We are going to meet each other," Newt replies. "A lot."

Lauren grins, and for the first time since they are having that conversation, she really seems happy.

"Deal."

Before he realizes what he is doing, he pulls her into a hug. It is a long, comforting and warm hug, and Newt finds himself hoping that he could freeze that moment like a picture, and stand there like that forever.

He smiles in the smooth fabric of Lauren's shirt by that thought. He would do that, if he could.

Just standing there, with Lauren's arms around him, no sadness, not missing anyone, not _losing_ anyone until the end of time.

He doesn't want her to leave. Not now, not later, not ever.

But until the time that they have to let go of each other, they can stand there as long as they want.

So that's exactly what they do.

**Short chapter, but I hope that you're okay with it because of the double update.**

**Anyway: I've reached the 1000 views! Yaaaaaay! Thanks to everyone who puts himself/herself through the torture of reading the crap written by a teenager without a life! I'm so happy now! :) :) :)**


	19. The Trials

The next morning, at half past seven, Lauren is standing in front of the door of mister Perch's office, along with Thomas and a girl named Teresa.

The three teenagers are unusually silent; they are probably all bursting of curiosity, Lauren thinks. She jumps up when the sound of an opening door breaks the silence. An unknown woman walks out of the office.

She has blond hair, tied back in a tight chignon. Her bright blue eyes are half hidden behind glasses, and, as everyone, she is wearing a white suit. Lauren doesn't know why, but the woman simply looks smart.

She looks at the teenagers over the metal frame of her spectacles.

"You are the new recruits, I assume?" she says, her voice friendly and clear.

Thomas nods.

The woman smiles.

"Follow me."

They start to walk, and while they do that, the only sound is the clicking of the woman's high heels.

Lauren doesn't really know what to expect, so she tries to think about nothing. She'll go crazy if she keeps thinking about all of her questions.

After a couple of corridors, they reach a door. The woman opens it. The three teenagers walk inside the room, and Lauren feels her mouth drop open when she sees how big that room is.

The room looks like a cinema hall, but round. The chairs are all facing a small podium in the middle of the area.

The woman walks towards the podium and gestures at the chairs.

"Take a seat," she says.

Lauren, Thomas and Teresa sit down in the second row. There are thirteen or fourteen other people; they also want to work here, Lauren realizes. The quiet murmur of the other people stops when the woman – who is standing on the podium now – starts to talk.

"Good morning, everyone," she says. "My name is Sandra Pyxis, and today I am going to tell you the most basic things about what WICKED does and how the Trials work."

She taps the screen behind her and a picture appears. It is a picture of someone who Lauren immediately recognizes as a Crank. She can see the insanity in the man's eyes.

"This is a victim of the dangerous virus VC321xb47, better known as the Flare," Mrs. Pyxis says. "As most of you know, this virus slowly eats the brain away and eventually drives the victim crazy. The Flare is spread around the world, and it is WICKED's task to find a cure for it. For this, we have made up the Trials. These are some sort of tests in which we study the subjects' brain activity, to eventually make a so-called blueprint. Most of the subjects are Immunes, children, who are brought here from over the whole world for our experiment. None of them knows about the Trials or anything else what we are doing."

She smiles for a moment before she continues.

"We will make things happen during the Trials to stimulate the subjects' brain activity. Those events are called Variables, and they are designed to make the subjects react the best way. Every subject has a tiny device in his or her brain, just above the brain stem. This device is called the Swipe. It is meant to measure the subjects' reaction. If the Swipe is activated the right way, it also wipes their memory, or parts of it."

She taps the screen again, and a map appears. It takes Lauren a moment before she sees that it is the map of a maze. A gigantic, complicated maze with an empty space in the middle.

"This, ladies and gentlemen," Mrs. Pyxis says, nearly looking proud, "is part one of the Trials."

She clears her throat.

"This part of the Trials will start in a couple of weeks, after the training is over. The subjects will be placed in this maze, without memories of anything but their name, with enough supplies and food to survive, and they will have to find a way out. That would be easy if there weren't some of our Variables settled in there."

A picture of a monster – yes, that is the best way to describe it – becomes visible on the screen. It is a bulbous, slimy creature, with needles and claws and knives that are connected to metal arms. It gives Lauren goose bumps and makes her want to squeeze her eyes shut.

"This," Mrs. Pyxis says, "is a Griever. They are programmed to attack anything that moves, except for each other and our other creatures. They are dangerous and hard to defeat, but when they attack, the knives or claws aren't their most powerful weapon."

The picture zooms in on one of the needles. It is attached to a small tube, about as big as a water bottle, and it is filled with a greenish fluid. Mrs. Pyxis points at the tube.

"_This_ is the Griever's most powerful weapon," she says. "When someone gets stung by a Griever, this serum gets put into said person's body. It can kill the stung one in twenty-four hours" – a gasp sounds through the hall – "but if that person gets the so-called Grief Serum in time, he or she will receive some memories during the Changing. This state of half-unconsciousness causes the person much pain and hallucinations, not to mention that most of the memories are horrible. It would be too easy for the subjects to just get their memories back whenever they feel like it," Mrs. Pyxis adds with a small smile.

Lauren feels stunned. That woman has just told us about the terrible things that WICKED is going to do to those poor children, and she acts like she is talking about what she has done this weekend.

_What the hell is wrong with her?_

"However," Mrs. Pyxis continues, "we don't want to get all subjects killed. Then all of our work would be for nothing. For this, we have programmed our Grievers to only be active at night. The subjects are supposed to live in the empty space in the middle of the maze, called the Glade. The Glade has doors to the maze, which close as soon as it gets dark, which means that the subjects are safe as long as they are back in the Glade before night. This prevents the subjects to search for the exit for too long, but it also protects them against the Grievers. The subjects will probably stay in the maze for about two years. If they haven't found the exit by then, we will send someone of our own to trigger the Ending. This will help the subjects choose: either stay in the Glade and die, or try to find a way out. The subjects who survive, will go to the second part of the Trials, which includes 150 kilometres walking through the Scorch."

Mrs. Pyxis folds her arms.

"I guess that's everything you need to know. Does anyone have questions?" she asks.

Lauren looks at the two teenagers next to her.

Thomas looks like he is in a trance; he is staring at the screen with huge eyes and open mouth, immersed but shocked at the same time. Teresa is just frowning.

No one raises his hand to ask a question; Lauren herself has enough questions, but she doesn't really dare to ask them.

_This woman is insane. She can't mean what she said about what they are going to do, can she?_

"No questions?" Mrs. Pyxis asks. "Okay. Have a nice day, everyone."

She walks away from the podium and disappears through the door. Thomas looks at Lauren.

"She has to be kidding, right?" he asks, his voice shaking. "She can't be serious about what WICKED is going to do to our friends, okay? She can't."

Lauren feels like someone punches her in the stomach when the full reality hits her.

_WICKED is going to put the subjects in a maze with dangerous monsters and without memories. _

_Newt is a subject. _

_They are going to put Newt in a maze._

Her head feels like they are a million people talking inside it.

_"What if he doesn't survive? What if he dies inside there?" _

_"It doesn't matter. He won't remember me anyway." _

_"I want to throw a bomb on the Headquarters. Now."_

Tears pop up in her eyes, but she blinks them away. She can't help anyone when she just sits there.

She wants to stand up to walks towards the door, but Thomas grabs her shirt and yanks her back on her seat.

"Where are you going?" he asks, a strange tone in his voice that Lauren can't really recognize.

"I just want to get out of here," she replies.

She is curious and confused at the same time; why doesn't Thomas just let her go?

He is still holding her shirt. Frustration suddenly boils up inside her, and she starts to pull herself free, but Thomas is stronger than she expected.

"What is going on? Where are you going?" he asks again, this time with a friendlier voice.

"Don't you understand?" she snaps at him. "They are going to put them in a freaking _maze!_ I have to warn them!"

_What is wrong with me? Why am I acting like this?_

Thomas' eyes soften.

"I _do_ understand," he says on a careful tone. "But we are coming with you."

Teresa nods consenting. Lauren sighs impatiently.

"All right. Whatever. But we need to hurry," she says.

She knows that it will last a couple of weeks before the Trials will begin, but she feels like with every second she is wasting, the chance of Newt's survival – and the survival of her friends as well – shrinks.

She stands up and starts to make her way towards the door, as fast as she can without falling over the chairs. Teresa and Thomas are right behind her.

They start to run towards the Training room as soon as they have reached the corridor.

The other two are surprisingly fast; it is nearly hard for Lauren to keep up with them. When the three teenagers reach the set of double doors that leads to the Training room, they take a moment to catch their breaths.

"It shouldn't be hard to stay unnoticed," Thomas says.

"We're wearing the same clothes as everyone in there," Teresa adds. "Just don't try to make people scream."

Lauren nods. She pulls at the hem of her white shirt – indeed the same shirt as everyone in the Training room. WICKED has replaced their usual clothes by these, to great scandal of most of the girls.

She yanks herself out of her thoughts.

_Focus, Lauren_.

"Okay. Let's go," she says, pushing the door open.

The three teenagers walk into the Training room.

**Kinda long chapter, and quite an important one. Everything has been explained now. Lauren knows everything. She's going to tell Newt about what she knows. How is he going to react on it? You'll find out in the next chapter :)**

**PS: Sorry for the previous wrong info. The Scorch Trials trailer will come out tomorrow, not four days ago. I think you guys already found out, but I wanted to apologize :)**


	20. If I Forget

Newt is doing some weights training when someone suddenly taps his shoulder.

It startles him, and he drops one of the weights. The heavy thing nearly falls on his toes.

"Sorry, sorry!" the person behind him shouts.

It is a girl's voice, and Newt can immediately guess who it is, but he doesn't believe his ears until he sees her. _Lauren._

"Hey," he says, happy but confused at the same time. Isn't she supposed to be working, somewhere else?

"Hi," Lauren responds. "I, eh... I didn't mean to scare you."

"That's okay," Newt says, still wondering what she is doing here. He almost asks her when she answers the question herself.

"I need to tell you something," she says. She tucks a curl behind her ear.

She seems restless, Newt thinks. He starts to feel nervous as well; the last time she said that sentence, she had to tell him something bad.

Lauren frowns, apparently wondering where to begin.

It is silent for a few seconds before she blurts out: "They're going to put you in a maze."

"What? Who? Why?" Newt asks, even more confused.

Lauren sighs, fidgeting at the sleeve of her shirt.

"WICKED is going to do terrible things to you all," she says. Worry sounds in her voice.

"They're going to put you in a maze with monsters to study your brains or something, and you'll have to walk 150 kilometres through the Scorch, and I don't know what else. They call it the Trials."

She is talking way too fast for Newt to follow, and he interrupts her by raising his hands.

"Whoa, calm down," he says gently. "Can you slowly tell me what's going on?"

Lauren bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, and when she starts to talk again, there is less panic in her voice.

"Thomas, Teresa and me were just at a kind of 'lesson', meant to tell us the basic things about WICKED. They are going to do some kind of experiment to find a cure for the Flare. They call that experiment the Trials."

Recognition flashes through Newt's head, but he puts it aside; he has to focus on Lauren's message now.

"You all are the subjects for the Trials. You'll be put in a maze with monsters called Grievers for the first Trial. The second Trial is walking 150 kilometres through the Scorch. And..."

Lauren inhales deeply before she goes on, and Newt is getting the sense that she has kept the worst for the last.

"Your memory will be wiped. All of it."

Newt expects himself to let his mouth drop open, to scream, _at least_ to panic, but none of that happens. He just stands there, and he doesn't feel anything.

Actually, he secretly even feels relieved.

_My memory is going to be wiped. Yes, for some things, it is indeed better if I forget them._

Lauren looks at him, tears on the edge of rolling down her cheeks.

"Really?" she asks. She is clearly hurt. "Nothing?"

She bites her lower lip.

"I guess I'll just... go, then."

Without saying anything more, she walks away.

Newt wants to go after her, to apologize, but he doesn't dare to.

Besides, what has he done wrong?

**Has anyone seen the 'The Scorch Trials' trailer yet? It's so incredibly awesome! I LOVE IT!**


	21. Your Fault

_Okay, Lauren. _

_Great. _

_Now you've messed it up._

That is the only thing Lauren can think when she walks away from Newt.

_He hates you. _

_You shouldn't have said anything._

She hides behind her dark hair, to conceal the fact that she is nearly crying.

_He'll think it's your fault. _

_You're the one working with WICKED, remember? _

_You're one of them._

She quickly walks out of the Training room and closes the door behind her. She leans against the wall while the words echo in her mind.

_It's your fault. _

_It's your fault. _

_It's your fault._

She can't have it anymore.

Tears streaming down her face, she starts to run. It is only half a minute later when she collapses in her bed.

When she pulls the blanket over her head, she finally starts to sob.

_He hates you. _

_His memory is going to be wiped. _

_It's your fault. _

_They're going to put them in a maze. _

_There is a big chance that they won't survive. _

_It's your fault._

The sound of an opening door makes Lauren look up.

She assesses that it is about half an hour ago that she went into the girls' dorm, and she wants to snap at the person who _dares_ to disturb her, but when she sees who that person is, she holds back.

Newt is standing in the doorway, the doorknob in his hand and an uneasy expression on his face. They look at each other for a moment; Lauren doesn't want to be the first to say something, because she knows that it won't sound very friendly, and that will make him hate her even more.

Newt clears his throat.

"Hey."

_Really? That's all?_

When Lauren doesn't reply, he says: "I already suspected that you'd be here."

"What?" Lauren reacts, her throat still thick from the crying.

Newt seems unmoved by her unfriendly tone.

"You always pull back here when you're upset."

It is quiet for a moment.

"Why are you upset, now?" he asks then, his tone annoyingly innocent.

"I mean, you're safe. You work for WICKED. They can't use one of their own people as a subject, can they?"

Lauren nearly gets angry at his question.

_"Why are you upset?" Really?_

"I am upset," she says, barely able to keep the anger out of her voice, "because... Do you think I like it when I'm going to lose everyone I know? Do you think I like it when I have to watch how my friends are getting killed by ugly half-machine monsters? Do you?"

_Great, Lauren. _

_Keep going. You really know how to make people hate you._

Newt shakes his head.

"Of course I know that it's hard for you. I just..."

"Then why did you ask me why I was upset?" Lauren yells, suddenly losing her temper.

Newt flinches, and Lauren bites her lip to hide that it is shaking.

"Newt... please, leave now. I don't want to hurt you," she says quietly, turning away from him.

The sound of the door closing confirms that he has left.

Lauren buries her face in her hands and starts to cry again, this time maybe even harder.

_Now you really have messed it all up. _

_Now you can be sure he hates you. _

_Well done, Lauren._

_Well done._

**So, I've decided that I'm going to update every day this week, because I won't be able to update next week. (We're going away with school for four days, to a place without internet, without computers, and without time to write. I actually DON'T look forward to it, but... yeah. You know how that works with school XP) So... just so you know. Bye!**


	22. Black As Ink

A day passes, and another one, and another one.

Lauren has gotten a job – she has to keep an eye on the subjects as soon as the Trials have begun –, they try to teach her how to use a computer, she even got rid of those ugly training clothes, but she barely notices any of it.

She doesn't talk to anyone anymore, afraid of making them hate her like she did with Newt.

While walking through the Headquarters – which she only does when it is necessary – she tries to avoid the blond boy as much as possible.

She can hardly sleep at night, interrupted by crying fits and the bitter voice in her head repeating: _It's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault_, over and over and over.

It is not until the fourth night that she finally can't have it anymore. Jerked out of her sleep by another crying fit, she silently steps out of her bed.

The white-coloured floor, looking blue-ish in the dim light, is cold as ice under her bare feet. Doubt drips in her mind when the glass doors of the Headquarters come into her vision, but she puts it aside.

She has to do this.

She can't have it anymore.

The glass pane shoves aside soundlessly when Lauren comes close to it. Still not stopping, she steps outside.

The chilly night air makes her cheeks feel frozen; they are still wet with tears. The many stones and branches make her feet feel raw.

She only starts to hesitate when she is standing on a thick cushion of fir needles, next to the foot of a gigantic pine tree.

_Are you sure about this?_

Lauren already knows what the answer is. It's no, but it is the only way.

_This is the only way._

She keeps repeating that in her head when she buries her fingers in the coarse bark of the tree and starts to climb. More tears pop up in her eyes when a splinter gets deeply pushed under her nail, but she keeps going.

The heavy smell of fir needles surrounds her. She assesses that she is about five metres high when she looks down.

Big mistake.

When she sees how high she actually is, she starts to feel light-headed.

_Come on, Lauren. _

_You need to climb higher if you want to succeed. _

_This is the only way._

Breathing heavily, she places her left hand on the branch above her. It is covered in resin, and her hand slips away before she can grab it.

She barely notices it.

It feels like she is somewhere else, like she is watching someone else climbing into a tree to end her life.

She can hear the last thought flashing through that other girl's head.

_This is not as planned_.

Her eyes close and she tumbles backwards, falling through the cold dark air, arms dangling up like a last hug.

Then she hits the ground and everything turns black as ink.

**Actually, the thing about this chapter is nearly funny. I wrote this yesterday, and guess what? My boyfriend just broke up with me, about half an hour ago. And the worst part is: I don't believe it. I know I should, but I just don't believe it. He told me he wasn't ready for love yet, and that he wasn't sure if he wanted to stay friends, and that he was sorry, and then he went away.**

**Am I supposed to be heartbroken now? I know I should, but I'm not. Or will that come later? Does anyone know? Am I supposed to hate him? He is so sweet and kind, I can't believe that he really broke up with me. Maybe it's even my fault, because I was so enthusiast about The Scorch Trials and books and movies lately, and maybe I have annoyed him with it, I don't really know.**

**Does anyone have advice? 'Cause I don't know someone who could understand me...**


	23. Bad News

"What?" Newt yells startled.

It is extremely early in the morning, still night, actually, and Thomas has just returned from going to the toilet. He came back with news, news that Newt can't believe.

"Be quiet, Newt," Thomas says silently. "You'll wake up the others."

"I don't care," Newt hisses. "I just can't believe you just said that. Repeat it, so that I can be sure I'm awake."

"I said that I heard two WICKED people talk," the other boy repeats. "They said that they found Lauren, in the middle of the night, outside, covered in fir needles and blood. They thought she has tried to commit suicide, but she failed."

"But why would she _do_ that?" Newt says, still louder than he should.

He runs a hand through his hair, which is standing upright because Thomas just has just woke him up, and then he remembers the conversation he and Lauren had four days ago. The last conversation with her he had since then. She had told him that she was going to lose everyone she knew, and that she hated that.

Would she try to kill herself because of that?

Newt doesn't know, and he hates that feeling.

"Tommy," he says, "we're going to Lauren. I think I know where she is."

Thomas nods, and without saying anything more, the two boys start to run.

They don't stop until they have reached the double doors of the sick room. Newt isn't tired or even out of breath – he has been training on the treadmills for the last couple of days – but he still has to stop before he goes into the room, to pluck up courage.

The last time he talked to Lauren, she was upset and furious. He isn't sure about what she is going to say or how she is going to react, for they haven't talked in nearly four days. He takes a deep breath and opens the door.

Thomas puts a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from going in.

"I'll stay out here," he says quietly. "I don't think she'd like two people in her room when she wakes up."

He smiles, and Newt nods. Thomas takes his hand away.

Newt pushes the door open and steps into the dim light of the sick room.

**I'm sorry about the short chapter, but I didn't have much inspiration. Newt just needed to know what happened to Lauren.**


	24. Lie

_Warmth._

The first thing Lauren feels when she gains some more consciousness, is the warmth.

She hadn't expected death to be so warm.

Or so dark.

She also didn't expect that her wrist would be stinging, or that her head would be feeling like someone's hammering on it.

The realization slowly drips into her mind.

_She is still alive. _

_She has failed. _

_S__he is not dead._

She wants to scream, to cry out, to kick something, but she only manages to squeeze her eyes even farther shut and moan quietly. She can hear the weak pounding of her heart in her ears.

No, it's not her heart. It sounds more like... footsteps. Someone is coming closer to her.

She secretly wishes that it is someone with a knife, or a gun, to kill her anyway.

Two parts of her immediately start to fight.

_"You can't be serious, can you? Do you really want to die?" _

_"Shut up. It can't be worse than living in a world where everyone hates you." _

_"Are you sure about that? Does everyone hate you?"_

That last question keeps hanging in her mind, echoing between the sides of her skull.

_Does everyone hate you? _

_Does everyone hate you? _

_Does everyone hate you?_

Lauren wants to cover her ears, so that she doesn't have to hear it anymore. That one, simple sentence makes her doubt.

Does she even _want_ to die?

Wouldn't she rather live?

She doesn't want to hear it. With all her force, she jerks her hands up to her ears.

Her left hand doesn't go farther than her middle; it feels like it is tied up with something. Her right hand shoots up, much faster than she expected, and hits something soft.

Lauren's eyes fly open and look right in the face of a very familiar person. Her view is still blurred and out of focus, but she'd recognize that blond hair even half blind.

She curses under her breath by the wave of happiness that flows through her body, and then again when she realizes what she did; she has hit him. She has hit Newt.

She can feel that her face is reddening, and she curses for the third time.

She blinks a couple of times to force her eyes to focus. It is obvious that she isn't outside anymore. She is lying in a bed, the blankets pulled up to her chest, and her left wrist is connected to a drip. The light in the room is dim.

_The sick room_, Lauren guesses.

Newt is standing next to her bed, carefully rubbing his cheek. When he looks at Lauren again, a wide smile spreads over his face.

_It almost seems like he is happy to see me_, Lauren thinks. And then again that question: _Does everyone hate you?_

The boy kneels down, next to her, so that their faces are on the same height.

"Hey," he says.

His voice is careful and soft, as if he is talking to a scared animal and tries not to chase it away.

"Are you all right?"

_No. Of course I'm not all right. I tried to end my life, but now I'm freaking stuck in _this_ damn world._

She wants to say that, but instead she whispers: "Not really."

Her voice is cracked and her throat feels dry; it is a wonder that she can even talk at all.

Newt's eyes darken.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling sick? Shall I get you some water? Shall I..."

Lauren interrupts him before he can go on.

"Newt, I don't feel bad from the outside," she says, barely audible.

"Is it because..."

He bites his lower lip.

"Is it because you... _failed?_"

Lauren doesn't know how he knows, and she also doesn't want to know how he knows. The only reason why she doesn't get mad at him is the way he hesitated before he said 'failed'. And how soft and careful his voice is. And the British accent. It is all quite adorable. Impossible to get angry at.

"Yes. It is because I failed."

"But..."

He hesitates again, not looking Lauren in the eyes.

"Why did you _try_, then?"

Lauren feels like she shrimps until she is as big as a mouse. Even her voice sounds small and quiet when she answers.

"I tried to end my life because I didn't want to lose everyone I know. Again. I didn't want to see them being killed. And everyone hates me here anyway. I'd die alone if I had succeeded."

The words flow out of her mouth before she realizes what she says. Why is she telling Newt all this? It would be just as easy to refuse to talk to him or tell him to leave, like the last time. But she doesn't. Why?

The blond boy next to her shakes his head, showing that he doesn't agree with her at all.

"No," he says, suddenly a little louder than he just talked, but still gently.

"You're wrong. I know loads of people who don't hate you."

"Oh, really? Name _one_ of them," Lauren replies unbelievingly.

Newt folds his arms. He looks more serious than a minute ago, more focused on showing her that he is right than on comforting her.

"Thomas and Teresa don't hate you; they're your friends. There are at least three girls that I'm sure about that they also are your friends. I don't know their names, but I could tell you who they are when I'd see them. I am pretty sure that Minho would like you, too, if he would know you. And..."

Newt hesitates before he goes on, though his face is red with... _anger? _

"_I_ like you. Maybe even more than just liking, but that doesn't matter, right here, right now. What does matter is how you ever could think that you were alone. I don't understand how you could. You mean a lot to many people. You mean a lot to _me_. And if you ever, _ever_ try to sneak away from this world again, I will force every single god I can think of to keep you here. I swear."

Lauren feels something wet stream down her right cheek, and she realizes that she is crying.

Newt is having tears in his eyes as well.

_He is right. _

_You are not alone. _

_And you were wrong. _

_They don't hate you. _He_ doesn't even hate you. _

_You stupid fool. How could you think that?_

Then she realizes it.

She tried to end her life, only for something that appeared to be a fact that only existed in her own head. She tried to die for a lie.

She doesn't know what is happening, but a lot of emotions crash into her at the same time.

Relief, because she has 'failed' and is still alive.

Anger, because she hates herself for even trying.

Fear at the thought of what would have happened if she were dead, now.

She could be dead now.

In a sudden impulse, she wraps her arms around Newt. She buries her face in his shoulder and starts to sob uncontrollably.

"Newt," she whispers. "Newt, I tried to... I really tried to... I could be..."

"Shh, shh," the boy interrupts her gently. "It's all right now. Don't think about it."

To her surprise, Lauren hears that his voice is choked, as if he is crying, too. His hands slowly rub circles over her back.

Lauren doesn't know what she would have done if he wasn't there. Probably break a window and slit her wrists with the splinters.

Another crying fit hits her at that mental image, and she starts to sob even harder.

"It's okay, Lauren. It's okay. You're safe now."

Lauren breathes in, shakily, and she hugs him tightly.

She doesn't know how or why, but most of the emotions from just have disappeared. Now she is only happy. And glad that Newt is here, that she is not alone. Comforted.

It lasts at least five minutes – five long, wonderful minutes – before they let go of each other.

She had been right when she thought that Newt was crying as well; his eyes are red-rimmed and dried tears have left their traces on his cheeks. Lauren is pretty sure she looks much worse. She knows how ugly she is when she cries. Her face is probably all puffed up and red and wet.

Newt smiles, and when he cups her left cheek in his hand, Lauren smiles, too.

"Please, don't _ever_ do something like that to me again," he whispers, barely audible.

"I promise," Lauren responds, on the same quiet tone.

She means it; the promise is not only a promise to him, but also to herself.

Then footsteps sound from the door side, and Lauren stretches her neck to look at who is coming. Her smile grows even wider when she sees him.

"Hey, Thomas," she says.

She forces him to bend over by wrapping her arms around his neck. When she releases him, he is looking quite uncomfortable.

"Hey, eh..." he says, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Newt, we need to go back. They're gonna freak out when they find out that we're gone."

Newt looks at Lauren with an apologizing look in his eyes. His thumb gently brushes over her cheek.

"I'm sorry, Lauren," he says. "I'll be back after training. I promise."

Then a small smile plays on his lips, as if he has just gotten a great idea. Lauren wants to ask him about it, but he already walks away.

"See you," he says when he walks out of the door. Thomas goes after him, waving at her.

"Bye," Lauren shouts to them.

When the door falls shut, she lets her head rest on the pillow.

She doesn't know why, but she feels like the raw wound inside her starts to heal.

**I felt like you guys needed a happy chapter, so here ya go! I promise it's gonna be better from now. No depressed people anymore. No suicide attempts.**

**Maaaaaybe :)**


	25. Thankful

That afternoon, at exactly ten minutes past five, the door of the sick room opens.

Lauren looks up. She has plucked the cushions from other beds and put them in her back, so that she can sit upright without the hard pole of the bed sticking in her back. A book is resting in her hands; she has convinced one of the doctors to get it for her.

It's a pretty old book, called 'Clockwork Angel'. She likes it, but now that the door is opening, she puts it down on the nightstand.

The first person who walks in is Newt. He grins frolic, but doesn't say anything.

The second person is Thomas, who is wearing the same smirk.

Teresa walks in, along with Lauren's other three friends: Charlie, Sonya and Avice.

The boy that Lauren knows as 'the annoying Asian' comes into the room as well.

When Lauren sees them all, she is sure she is doing the same thing as them; smiling like a freaking idiot.

Newt gestures at all those people.

"Lauren, I told you, you are not alone," he says, his eyes glittering. "Here's the proof."

It is perfectly silent for a moment, because Lauren doesn't have any idea how to react, and then Avice, Charlie and Sonya hurl towards her. She immediately gets covered in hugs and the crying from the three girls.

"Lau," Charlie sobs. "Newt told us what happened... We didn't know..."

"We should've... We should've been there for you... What kind of friends are we?" Avice adds, protectively wrapping her arms around Lauren.

Sonya doesn't say anything and just throws herself into the group hug.

Lauren embraces the three girls, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Guys, guys, it's all right," she says, happy that her friends are there. "I've already promised that I'll never try something like that again."

Soon, the three girls are a sobbing and smiling mess. Lauren catches glimpses of the boys and Teresa, who are awkwardly standing near the door.

Charlie must have followed her look, because she escapes from the arms for a moment, runs over to the others and shouts: "Come on!"

She grasps Teresa's wrist and drags her over to the other girls. Newt, Thomas and Asian Guy follow quite soon, and Lauren gets surrounded by people who are hugging her.

She is so thankful for them that she totally forgets what exactly the reason is why they are here.

She can't imagine that she was so hopeless and desperate that morning, and that night, and the three days before. She can't believe that she was desperate enough to not want to live anymore. She can't be happy enough about the fact that it was all about something that she had made herself believe.

She simply can't.

So, for that moment, she just thinks about nothing and enjoys the amazing feeling of being held close.

**Kinda short chapter, but Lauren is happy again! I didn't like the fact that I didn't mention her friends yet (only in the previous chapter), so I just let them make an appearance. Here you go: Charlie, Avice and Sonya! And for the Minho-fans here: he is going to come back in other chapters! Bye, have a nice day!**


	26. Being Watched

The two days after that, Lauren feels unusually happy.

She doesn't know what exactly has happened to her, but it must be something good, because she has never felt like this in all the time that she was in the Headquarters.

She catches herself on humming songs while working on her computer, she nearly dances through the hallways and, that morning, she realized that she _doesn't_ hate her new uniform, even though it is way too tight and bright white.

For some odd, unexplainable reason, Lauren is _happy_.

But that happiness disappears immediately when Lauren arrives at her office and turns her computer on.

Instead of her usual screensaver, a timer is visible. It takes Lauren a moment before she sees what it is for.

_Time before start Maze Trials,_ she reads above the timer.

She gasps when she sees how much time they have left.

Or better: how much time the subjects have left.

_4 days, 21 hours, 23 minutes._

_Not enough time. Not at all._

Lauren feels her happiness shatter into a million pieces.

She wants to run towards Newt, to warn him, to tell him that he only has four days left before they will wipe his memory and throw him in a maze. But when she stands up, the thought _Man, we really need some walkie-talkies of something_ flashing through her head, her boss, mister Carp, walks into the office.

"Is there a problem, Pallido?" he asks.

_Damn it._

"Eh, no, of course not," Lauren replies, a little too quickly. "I, eh... I was just _surprised_ when I saw how little time there is until the Trials."

"Ah, yes," mister Carp says. It seems like he doesn't notice the sarcasm in Lauren's voice at all.

"It is exciting, hm? To know that you're doing something great for the world?"

_This man is crazy. All WICKED employees are crazy._

"Oh, I am just _thrilled_ to see what is going to happen," she says, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

She is definitely lying; actually, the idea of having to watch what happens to the subjects horrifies her. She would do anything to get Newt out of this situation. She has even suggested him working at WICKED, but he didn't want to do that.

"Yeah," mister Carp says, suddenly absently. "I'll leave you alone. Work hard, Pallido."

He walks out of her office.

Lauren leans against her desk. _What a creep is that man._

At least he has showed her something useful; she is being watched. It must be. Mister Carp's timing was too precise to be an accident.

She sighs.

_Now I have to wait until four o'clock. Shit._

Sighing for a second time, she sits back down in her chair, and, trying to keep her eyes away from the down-counting timer, she starts to work.

It is about half past twelve – Laure has just returned from lunch – when the door of her office opens. A smaller, brown-haired figure dashes into the room.

"Thomas? What are you doing?" Lauren asks confused.

He doesn't respond, pushes her aside and starts to click things on her computer, fast enough to be impossible to follow what he is doing. The screen eventually becomes completely black, apart from a flickering line at the top.

Thomas' fingers flash over the keyboard. _Turn cameras off._

Then he presses 'enter', and immediately a click behind Lauren sounds. A tiny, black box crashes into the floor.

_The camera_.

She was right when she thought that she was being watched.

"Thomas?" she asks again. "What's wrong?"

"You have to come with me," he replies.

His face is pale, Lauren notices, and his eyebrows are furrowed in a constant frown. He seems worried.

"Why?" Lauren asks, even more confused. _What is going on here?_

Thomas sighs frustrated.

"I can't explain here," he says. "They'll find out about the cameras soon. Come."

He grabs her lower arm and pulls her out of her chair, into the hallway. They walk towards Thomas' office in a high tempo, nearly running.

When they get inside, Thomas closes the door. He sits down in front of the computer.

A list of folders is shown on the screen, something Lauren has never seen before.

"What is this?" she asks.

"I was just browsing through the computer when I came across this," Thomas responds, nearly as if in a trance. "A folder called 'Swipe'. I immediately hacked the cameras and shut them down, because I knew that I'm not meant to see this. I don't know what this all is."

Lauren looks at the screen.

It is filled with small, yellow icons. Numbers are typed under it, in neat, black letters, perfectly in order. She doesn't recognize any of them.

_B2, A7, B8..._

Until her eyes come past a number that rings a bell.

_A5_.

She had seen it on Mandria's computer.

_Subject A5. _

_Newt._

Now she can't have it anymore.

Before Thomas can stop her, she stands up and dashes out of the office.

**I might update again today, because I'm leaving with school tomorrow, and then I won't be able to update for 4 days :'(**

**Anyways, see ya later!**


	27. Puzzle Pieces and Computer Stuff

"Newt! Newt!"

Lauren starts to yell when she sees the blond boy in the corridor, near the Training room. Several other boys and girls turn around; probably they are just done lunching. Thank God that they aren't back in the Training room yet.

Newt looks at her just when she reaches him.

"Lauren? What's wrong?" he asks. He must have realized that she has never run that hard before.

"No time... I'll explain... Come with me," she pants.

She knows that he must think that she is talking nonsense, but he has to follow her. _Now._

She grabs his hand and pulls him out of the group, into another hallway.

"Lauren, what the..." Newt begins, but Lauren cuts him off, probably a little too roughly.

"Thomas has discovered something," she says. "We don't know what it is, but it has something to do with the Swipe, and with you, and with the other subjects."

She also quickly tells him about the timer and that they don't have much time left. Newt listens without saying anything; he must be getting used to the shocks. _Poor boy._

But Lauren doesn't have much time to feel sorry. She is too curious and too worried at the same time for another feeling.

She opens the door of Thomas' office and walks inside, Newt's hand still in hers.

Thomas is still sitting behind the computer. He turns around when the two teenagers come in.

He sighs and looks at Lauren.

"It won't help if you keep running away as soon as you discover something," he says, sounding tired.

Lauren feels her cheeks redden.

"I'm sorry, Thomas," she says. "But I couldn't keep Newt out of this. This is about him, too, right?"

Thomas nods, but shakes his head right after that.

"This is about _us_ as well, Lauren," he says. "Take a look at this."

He scrolls down the list. Entirely down the list with yellow icons are three folders.

_Thomas. _

_Teresa._

Lauren isn't surprised when she sees her own name as last icon.

_Lauren_.

"Okay," she says, a little frustrated because she is so curious and she still doesn't have any answers. "So what? I just want to know what it means."

"Yeah, me too," Newt adds, opening his mouth for the first time in five minutes.

Thomas barely visibly rolls his eyes and clicks the nearest folder – coincidentally it's Lauren's.

Three orange icons appear on the white background. Lauren's eyes quickly scan what is standing under the first one, leaning forward.

_File-memory-2008-10-23-5:34._

"Wait... Memory?" she asks.

No one answers; they are probably exactly as confused as she is.

After a moment of silence, Lauren commands: "Click it."

Thomas opens the file with two clicks of his mouse. Something appears on the screen, and at exactly that moment, a sharp pain flashes through Lauren's head.

She feels that her eyes close, but when she opens them again, she is not in the office anymore. It seems like she is captured behind someone's eyes – the eyes of her younger self, she realizes, though she doesn't know how she knows that. She can see and feel everything, but can't move.

The first thing she sees is a bright lamp.

She squeezes her eyes shut, but she doesn't do it herself, at the same time. It's confusing.

Pain flashes through the back of her head when she moves away from the light.

Then the light gets blocked by something; the head of a man who bends over her. He is holding a smaller lamp, and the bright light shines in Lauren's eyes. She closes them for a second time.

A deep voice comes into her ears.

"She'll be fine," he says to someone else. "The surgery to place the Swipe has been successful. Now let's see if it works."

Lauren turns her head, just in time to see a young man press a button on his computer.

It feels like a thread gets cut in half; as if there appears a sudden hole in her mind.

Lauren feels her body grow limp. Her eyes fall shut, and when she passes out, the older Lauren gets ripped away from her younger self and is suddenly back in the office.

She gasps for air.

"Lauren? Are you all right?" Newt asks, kneeling beside her.

She realizes that she is sitting on the floor, on hands and knees, and she quickly stands up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she says absently.

_What the hell has just happened?_

Thomas asks her the same question at the moment that it flashes through her mind.

"What happened, Lauren?"

"I don't know," she answers, running a hand through her hair. "It was like I was captured behind my younger self's eyes. I could see what she saw – no, what _I_ saw – but I can't remember that those things happened. Someone was talking about the Swipe, and..."

"We've seen the same thing on the screen," Thomas cuts her off. "There was bright light, a man with a lamp and someone pressing a button. Is that right?"

Lauren nods.

Thomas frowns.

"That man said that they had placed the Swipe," he says, nearly muttering. "We know that, if it is activated the right way, it can wipe parts of someone's memory... Someone pressing a button..."

At that moment, the missing puzzle piece seems to fall in its place. Thomas snaps his fingers.

"That's it!" he shouts out. "They've wiped that part of your memory, to make you forget that they have placed the Swipe. We're not supposed to know about that. The files are connected with the Swipe in your head."

"That's why I suddenly saw what happened!" Lauren adds. "It's just a memory that has been placed back in my mind!"

Thomas quickly goes back to the list. He scrolls towards the folder called A5 and opens it.

"What's A5?" Newt asks, sounding confused.

Lauren turns towards him.

"_You_ are subject A5," she explains. "It's your number."

Newt opens his mouth, as if he wants to say something, but he closes it after a second.

Thomas turns around, the mouse ready on the first file.

"Ready, Newt?" he asks.

Newt nods. "I am, Tommy."

Thomas clicks the file, and as soon as it opens, Newt squeezes his eyes shut and pinches his jaws on each other. Lauren realizes that she must have looked like that only minutes ago. She looks at the screen to follow what Newt sees.

The memory starts the same way as Lauren's did; a bright lamp.

Younger Newt holds up a hand to shield his face from the white light.

His fingers are much thinner than they are now, and his hand is smaller, making Lauren wonder how old he was when that happened.

Seven? Maybe eight?

A long moan sounds. Lauren would have giggled if the situation wasn't that serious; Newt's voice – it is definitely his – is high-pitched, almost like a girl's.

A circle in the corner of the screen, something Lauren hasn't seen before, becomes a deep purple colour. His emotion, Lauren realizes.

She has learned about that. Purple means confusion.

"Newt? Newt, can you hear me?"

A voice sounds, and at that moment, a woman with red hair appears on the screen, blocking the light. Lauren has seen her before, but she looks younger and she is wearing glasses.

The view moves up and down when Newt hears his name; apparently he is nodding.

The woman looks away from Newt.

"He is reacting on the name," she says to someone.

Lauren frowns.

Why does she say _the_ name and not _his_ name?

It _is_ his name, right?

A man's voice responds.

"All right. I'll wipe it now."

The woman nods, and a soft click sounds, confirming that the man is pressing the memory-wipe-button. For a moment, nothing happens.

Lauren frowns again. Isn't the screen supposed to become black now?

Then the small circle on the screen colours red – Lauren hates to see that colour since the lessons she has had, because she has been taught that red means pain.

A shock waves through the screen.

The next thing she sees is the white floor, and the leg of a bed. Apparently Newt has fallen on the ground.

"Dan, something's wrong," the woman says. She doesn't sound calm anymore; now she seems nearly worried.

The man – Dan? – replies with a tensed voice.

"We've got a small breakdown," he says. Judging by the rattling sound, he is busy with the keyboard.

The view is still moving and shaking, making Lauren wonder what is going on.

Newt growls quietly in the back of the office; she had almost forgotten that he was there as well.

Dan's voice pulls her out of her thoughts.

"I've got it."

A last click sounds, and the screen suddenly doesn't shake anymore. Everything starts to grow blurred until the screen becomes black.

Thomas quickly glances at Newt.

"He's gonna fall," he says to Lauren. "Catch him. Fast."

Newt collapses at exactly that moment, and Lauren jumps forward. She grabs him just before he hits the floor.

His eyes shoot open and meet Lauren's. They both smile at the same moment.

After sitting there for a long, wonderful moment, Thomas clears his throat.

"Eh, I'm sorry to interrupt, but aren't we discovering shocking things instead of acting like you two already are a couple?" he asks, with a slightly amused tone.

Lauren feels her cheeks redden. She quickly lets go of Newt – who is uncontrollably grinning – and gets to her feet.

"Yeah," she responds, not really knowing where to look. "I, eh... I guess you're right."

She walks over to Thomas and sits down on the desk, her legs dangling over the edge.

"So... now that we know that WICKED has stolen memories from us, what are we going to do?" she asks.

The two boys shrug at the same time.

"I don't know," Thomas says. "But if they have messed with our brains before – and they did – then I'm sure they can do it again when they want to."

"And we already knew that. They're going to wipe the subjects' memories before they get send into the maze."

Lauren feels a small sting in her heart when she says that. She still can't fully believe it.

No one is evil enough to do that to children, right?

She sees Newt swallow hardly. A wave of pity flows over her.

She can't imagine how it is to literally lose everything she has. Her friends, her safety, even her memories.

It must be horrible.

She forces herself to put the thought away.

It is just going to happen, and there is nothing she can do about it. Nothing at all.

She is so lost in her thoughts that she only notices that Thomas has said something when she sees his mouth move.

"What?" she asks, maybe a little too roughly.

"I said that..." Thomas begins, but what he wanted to repeat will always stay a mystery.

The door flies open and the doorknob crashes into the wall with a loud bang.

Mister Carp is standing in the doorway, out of breath and his head red of fury.

Thomas' eyes flash over to his computer screen. He curses under his breath.

When Lauren follows his look, almost unnoticeable, she sees that the cameras have been put on again.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit. _

_We're in trouble._

Mister Carp clears his throat.

"What were you doing?" he asks with a honeyed voice.

Thomas cringes next to Lauren. Newt is the first one to say something.

"There was a problem with the computer, and Thomas and Lauren asked me to help them, because I know a lot about computer stuff, and..."

His voice trails off when he sees mister Carp raise his eyebrows in disbelief.

"And he solved the problem, so it's all right now," Lauren adds quickly.

The man in the doorway squints.

"I should discharge you," he says in a quiet and threatening tone. "All of you. I should kick you out and feed you to the Cranks."

Thomas seems to grow even smaller on his office chair.

Mister Carp growls almost inaudibly before he goes on.

"But we're going to need you too much to let something happen to you. So get out, fast, before I change my mind."

Lauren feels her mouth drop open.

"Wait... What?" she asks stupidly.

"I said: get out," her boss says, slightly annoyed. "Take a day off for the rest of the day. I don't care what you do. Just _get away from me_."

That last sentence is said threatening enough to make Lauren spurt out of the office. Newt and Thomas are right behind her. They don't stop running until they are out of the part of the building where the offices are.

Lauren can't help but frown when they are standing still.

"That was one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me," she says.

The two boys nod; Lauren involuntarily notices that she is the only one being out of breath.

Newt shrugs.

"I don't mind some more free time, do you?"

"No, of course not," Lauren answers immediately.

Thomas furrows his eyebrows in worry.

"I couldn't turn the computer off," he mutters. "They can see what we've been doing, if they hadn't seen it via the cameras. I'm gonna have to hack the computer to hide it, or we'll get in big trouble."

He runs a hand through his hair.

"See you later, guys."

Then he walks off, to God-knows-where.

Newt turns to Lauren.

"And what are _we_ going to do?" he asks.

Lauren shrugs.

"I don't know. Any ideas?"

Newt grins, one of those sweet smiles that are frolic at the same time.

"I think I know something."

**What are they going to do? I can't tell you yet, because I'm going to make you curious (*evil laugh*), but it's certainly going to be fun! And it has something to do with my summary... Unfortunately, you'll only find out at the end of the week... I'm so sorry, you should contact my school if you want me to keep updating for the next four days :)**

**Goodbye, I'm gonna miss you guys! :'(**


	28. Ik Vind Je Lief

"Eh... I don't know if I like this idea."

Lauren looks up to Newt. Her voice quivers with fear.

They are outside, high in a pine tree. Newt has convinced Lauren to climb in it. She actually didn't want to, and she still hates herself for agreeing.

"You won't regret it, I promise!" Newt shouts down, his tone filled with joy. "Just don't look down!"

Lauren glances sideward. They are already higher than most of the other trees.

_Great. _

_He has chosen exactly the highest tree here._

Lauren wants to grab hold of the stem and never let go of it anymore, but she doesn't dare to. She shivers while she grips a new branch.

It is cold, and the only thing Lauren is wearing is her WICKED uniform – which is literally torn to shreds by now. There are holes and cuts in the way-too-tight white pants, the vest is lying on the dirty ground and the shirt is in the same state of damage as her pants.

She pulls herself up and steps on a steady branch.

_Grip branch, and step. _

_Grip branch, and step._

Lauren tries her best to forget what happened the last time she climbed in this kind of tree, and every time the thought comes into her head, she starts to feel dizzy.

Luckily, it is so cold that her brain seems to be frozen or something, so she can't think. She only knows that she has to keep going up.

That is the reason why she almost bumps into Newt when he suddenly stops.

"We're there," he says.

It takes a second before Lauren realizes that he means the top of the tree.

_We're there. _

_We can't climb higher._

Her sigh of relief forms a small cloud in front of her face.

Newt grins at her and pulls a branch at their left to the side. Lauren feels her mouth drop open when she sees the view.

It is beautiful.

The sun is finally showing herself, something Lauren couldn't see under the thick blanket of fir needles, and it is lighting up the surrounding of the Headquarters.

She can see the building, but it looks tiny from the top of the gigantic tree.

She can see the rocks at the beach, a place where she always loved to be with friends in the summer, and the pale blue of the sea.

"Whoa," is the only thing she can say.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" Newt asks behind her.

Lauren notices that his voice is calmer now, less maniacal. Less... _unconsidered._

"I discovered this place a while ago. I like to be here when I feel bad about something," he says quietly.

Lauren is still staring at the view. A picture pops up in her head, a way she had never seen this place before.

It looks like a location close to her house – no, the building that _used to be_ her house –, near a river.

The small stroke of sand that is supposed to be a beach, the always-cold water, the rocks that get scalding hot in the summer... It looks exactly like it.

The big difference is that that other place was home, and this is a place where they kidnap children to do horrible things to them.

Newt looks at her, his eyebrows bowed up in the middle.

"Hey, is something wrong?" he asks.

Lauren shakes her head.

"No," she responds. "This place, it just... it makes me think of home."

"Really? Why?" Newt asks. He leans on a branch.

"It was always cold there," Lauren says, feeling as if she is in a trance. "You froze if you stepped into the water, even in the middle of the summer."

Newt grins. "That's stupid."

"Oh, that wasn't the only stupid thing," Lauren continues.

She looks at the view, eyes half closed.

"We spoke a stupid language that no one else spoke, so you had to learn a new language when you went on vacation. It was impossible to get a tan where I lived, because it was nearly always cold or raining. And then there was that revolting candy that coloured you teeth totally black..."

She sighs, looking down at her feet.

"But I miss it. I mean home, not the candy. Yuck."

The two teenagers laugh, though it actually wasn't funny at all. Then it is silent for a while.

It is not an awkward silence; Lauren wouldn't mind if they'd be sitting there forever, looking at the amazing view. She realizes that she isn't afraid of the height anymore.

_Odd._

Newt breaks the silence with a question.

"Where do you actually come from?" he asks.

He is blushing, as if he is ashamed to ask it. Lauren leans again the tree stem.

"You can guess three times."

"Eh... Italy?"

"Nope. My father was."

"Portugal?"

"My mother, not me."

_He really doesn't know_, Lauren thinks amused. _He is just randomly guessing. Isn't my accent obvious enough?_

Newt runs a hand through his hair, but he doesn't seem frustrated or something.

"I don't know... Germany?"

Lauren chuckles softly.

"Do I really look German? You got to be kidding me."

"You've got the accent, you know."

"Okay, okay. I get it," she says, smiling. "I'm from the Netherlands."

"I was close."

"Yeah," Lauren says, suddenly absently.

It is silent again, but this time the silence lasts less long.

Newt turns towards her. His brown eyes are soft, and Lauren wishes she could be staring into them forever.

"How do you tell someone in Dutch that you really like her?" he asks.

His tone is surprisingly gentle, and the flirty tone you would expect to be in his voice, isn't there.

Lauren thinks a moment before she answers.

"I would say... Ik vind je lief."

Newt grins crookedly.

"Then I think I'd say that to you," he says. "Lauren, ik vind je lief."

Lauren bursts out in giggling when she hears the adorably odd way he speaks out the words from her native language.

"Ik vind jou ook lief, Newt," she replies.

In a sudden impulse, she bends forward to plant a tiny, careful kiss on his cheek.

The wind suddenly starts to blow harder, as if it is trying to force the two teenagers to get out of the tree.

"We'd better climb back down," Lauren says, but the gentle tone never disappears from her voice.

Newt nods, looking stunned.

Without saying anything more, they start their way back to the ground.

**I'M BACK PEOPLE! :) :) :)**

**Goodness, I've missed writing so much :( but luckily the school thing wasn't as bad as I expected :). We've slept in a farm, with the thirty people from my class, and we've done a lot of fun stuff, like archery and making bonfires.**

**Anyways, now I've got internet again, and I'm so happy to show you this super fluffy Laurewt chapter! Let me know what you think of it, I always really appreciate your reviews :)**

**Goodbye!**


	29. Angels To Fly

As soon as the two teenagers have climbed out of the tree, there are a lot of fir needles in their hair and clothes. Newt doesn't mind; he is still floating on cloud nine.

He can't believe it – did Lauren really _kiss_ him?

He has pinched his arm several times on their way back down, to check if he is really awake, and not dreaming, and he is. He is awake.

He can't get that stupid grin off his face.

Lauren walks away from the tree. Her uniform is everything but white and her hair is all tangled and covered in resin, but she still looks amazing, Newt thinks. He watches her as she holds out her hand and looks up to the sky.

"I believe it just started raining," she says when she turns to Newt. "Shall we go inside?"

As if it is an answer, the loud sound of thunder echoes through the air.

It is darker than just, Newt notices, and the clouds that suddenly have appeared are a dark grey. A new burst of wind makes the rain fall harder.

"Definitely," Newt answers Lauren's question.

After a last look at each other, they start to run.

The raindrops are cold as ice and they feel like tiny stones when they hit the bare skin of Newt's arms. He is soaking wet in a couple of seconds. The rain makes thin stripes through the air, making Newt's vision blurry; he can only see Lauren as a shadow, less than a metre away from him.

He exhales deeply when he reaches the doors of the Headquarters. Though he really wants to go inside, to be dry under a roof instead of standing there in the pouring rain, he waits for Lauren.

She is slower than him, but she has reached the doors as well in a few seconds. Before letting her go inside first, Newt steps into the building.

As soon as the doors close, lightning flashes through the sky and lights the puddles on the muddy ground up.

Newt looks at Lauren.

"Just in time," he says.

He wouldn't want to be outside now; he knows how heavy this kind of storms can be. The roof of his house had collapsed once because there was too much water on it to hold.

Lauren nods absently. She is looking at the rain that is rushing against the glass doors.

Tiny drops of water are captured between her eye lashes, and every now and then, one of them falls and slowly rolls down her cheek.

Newt has to resist the urge to wipe them away, one by one.

He gets pulled out of his thoughts when Lauren rubs over her arms.

"Shit. My vest is still lying outside," she sighs.

Newt peers through the pouring rain, and indeed: under the pine tree that they have just climbed in, a white cloth is lying on the ground.

"I can get it for you, if you want," he says.

He doesn't want to be the gentleman. He just knows that she'll get in trouble if she loses a part of her uniform, and he wants to prevent that. It's simple.

Lauren shakes her head, still a little absently.

"No, Newt," she says quietly. "It's too cold outside for angels to fly."

Newt feels his eyebrows shoot up.

"What?" he asks surprised.

Lauren smiles carefully.

"My father always said that when I wanted to play outside in the rain or something. I think it's from a song. He never told me, actually."

"Well, I can't be an angel," Newt says, shrugging. "I don't have wings."

Lauren whispers something under her breath. He would swear that it sounds like "You're an angel to me", but he must have heard it wrong. It can't be possible that she is in love with him, too?

She smiles at him, wider than just.

"I don't think all angels have to have wings," she says softly.

Before Newt can ask what she means with that, she changes the subject.

"Come on. Let's get some dry clothes."

She walks away, and Newt goes after her.

**Yay, yay! It's getting more and more cute every chapter! When do you think they're going to tell each other that they are in love? And how? Will they ever tell each other? Or are they too shy? You're gonna find out! :)**

**Have a nice day!**


	30. Breaking

When they have changed into new clothes – unfortunately, they couldn't find any other clothes than the dry versions of the ones that they were wearing – Lauren and Newt just stand in the room for a moment. Lauren looks around.

One way or another, they have ended up in the boys' dorm, and for some reason, Lauren is feeling slightly uncomfortable about that. Maybe that's because she has never been here before. Maybe it's because she is a girl and she doesn't belong here.

She doesn't know.

The two of them stand there for a moment in silence. Then the loud noise of voices sounds from outside the door.

_The boys are back from training. _

_Shit_.

Lauren doesn't know how they are going to react on her – a _girl_ in the middle of the _boys_' dorm – but she has a slight feeling that they're not going to be really happy about it.

She and Newt glance at each other before the door smashes open.

The boys' talking immediately stops when they see Lauren. She can see several faces in the doorway, all in different grades of surprise. The boy who is standing in the front – a dark-skinned, intimidating guy – is staring at Lauren with his mouth half opened.

It is perfectly silent before the boy with the dark skin says something.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" he yells.

Lauren doesn't dare to answer; she just bows her head and wishes that she suddenly becomes invisible.

It doesn't work.

Newt steps forward next to her.

"Alby, relax," he says.

His voice is careful but strong at the same time.

"It's not what you think."

"Oh, I think it_ is_, Newt!" the dark-skinned boy – Alby – yells back. "Sneaking away from training, disappearing for three hours and we find you back in the dorm – with _her!_"

Lauren finally realizes what this boy must be thinking.

_He thinks Newt and I were... _

_That we were having..._

She feels too embarrassed to even finish the thought.

Newt's face colours bright red – a mix of shame and fury. She knows that because she feels exactly the same.

"What is going on in that _sick_ brain of yours?" Newt shouts to Alby. His voice cracks twice; on the words 'on' and 'sick'.

Alby squints. He almost seems amused that he has gotten Newt that angry. Only that thought makes Lauren want to choke him.

"Do you really want to know that?" Alby's tone is now quiet and threatening.

Newt doesn't respond. He just looks at Alby with a look in his eyes that could turn hot water into ice.

"Newt here is messing around with a _slut!_"

The loud, mocking laughs of exactly _two_ people sound out of the crowd.

Lauren slowly looks up, surprised, her hands balled to fists by her sides. She sees that most of the boys are staring at Alby with the same look as Newt in their eyes – actually, all of them, except two guys in the back who are seemingly laughing their butts off.

She is so surprised that she totally forgets that Alby had called her a slut.

_Nearly all of these people are on our side. _

_Unbelievable._

However, Newt doesn't seem to forgive Alby that fast.

"You did _not_ just say that," he says quietly, never losing the tensed eye contact with the dark-skinned boy. "I hope you agree with me."

When Alby slowly shakes his head, with a mocking, wide smile, Newt finally loses his temper.

He dashes forward – Lauren didn't even know that a human could move _that_ fast – and before she even realizes what is happening, Newt has thrown Alby onto the floor and is sitting on top of him.

Alby is trying to wrestle himself free, but even though he is older, broader and more muscular than Newt, the boy who is sitting on his chest seems to be the stronger one. He curses loudly when Newt punches him in the face.

The cracking sound of something that breaks echoes through the room, and a gasp flows through the crowd of boys. No one intervenes yet, though.

Lauren knows how that feels; she is so startled that she can't move.

Newt, the boy that she knows to be one of the kindest, is attacking someone.

It wasn't _that_ bad, was it?

Besides, she doesn't care about the fact that Alby has called her a slut. She doesn't take it personal; that boy doesn't even know her. He probably just was confused and covered that up by being mean.

She gets jerked out of her thoughts by a loud scream, and another one, and another one.

Finally someone breaks free from the crowd. The Asian boy, who Lauren has come to know as Minho, clutches his strong arms around Newt's middle and starts to lift him off Alby.

It seems to be easy for him; he picks Newt up as if he only weighs ten kilo.

"Hey! Let me go!" Newt screams furiously, his voice breaking because of the volume.

He starts to lash out wildly with arms and legs.

Alby struggles up behind him. He seems to be out of breath, and his nose is bleeding, covering his whole face in blood. Lauren would bet that it is broken; that probably was the breaking noise she heard.

Minho, who is still holding a protesting Newt, commands the other boys from behind Newt's back.

"Get out," he says in a low voice. "All of you. And close the door."

For some reason, the boys actually leave. They still remain surprisingly silent as they do so, but Lauren can see a guy with pitch black hair talking to Alby. The unknown boy sends her a destructive look before the door falls shut.

It is only then that Minho puts Newt down. As soon as the blond boy is back on his feet, Minho starts to talk to him.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asks, sounding slightly frustrated. "You know that Alby was insulting _Lauren_ more than you, right?"

Newt folds his arms firmly and looks at Minho with his jaws pinched on each other, like a young child, even though Newt is nearly ten centimetres longer.

"That's exactly the problem," he says.

His voice is clear, but still full of anger.

"I don't just let someone call Lauren a slut. I can't."

Lauren feels that this is her moment to come in. She steps towards the two boys, feeling slightly pleased in the back of her mind about the fact that Newt was attacking Alby to defend her.

"I didn't take it personal," she says, trying to make her voice sound as calm as she can. "Alby had never seen me before. I think I just scared him."

"I don't care, Lauren," Newt reacts, but he seems less angry now. "He offended you. I don't let that happen."

"Anyway," Minho steps in, "you're gonna get in trouble. I'm pretty sure you broke Alby's nose, and there is no way that he thinks that this is over. WICKED will come back on it as well. And what do you think they'll think when they see the blood on your clothes?"

Newt looks down to his shirt and pants, which used to be spotless white, but are now smeared with red.

He sighs frustrated.

"Okay, so I messed it up again. Anything else you want to say?"

Minho nods. He lowers his voice, probably to prevent Lauren from hearing what he is saying, but she hears the two words anyway.

"Tell her."

Minho nods at Lauren with a small smile before he walks out of the dorm.

Newt's head has coloured a bright red. He looks down at his bare feet and he bites his lip.

"Newt?" Lauren asks carefully.

She knows that it maybe isn't the right time to ask it, but her curiosity is too big.

"What did he mean? Tell me _what?_"

Newt swallows hardly before giving in.

"I think you need to sit down for a moment."

**Uh-oh! Or yay? What is he going to say to Lauren? Will it be something bad? Or something good?**

**Just makin' ya curious! *evil laugh***


	31. Quick and Honest

The two of them take a seat on the floor, between two bunk beds in the back of the dorm. They are facing each other, and Lauren can exactly see Newt's expression. He seems to be extremely nervous, and something else Lauren doesn't know how to describe.

He takes a deep breath before he begins.

"All right. I need to tell you something. I've held it back for a while – only Tommy and Minho know about it – but I feel like I need to tell you now, because the time I have left is less than I expected."

_He speaks so officially_, Lauren thinks. _Has he practiced this?_

"Okay, someone's probably gonna interrupt us, so I need to be quick and honest now. I'm in love with a girl. I've been having a crush on her since the day I met her."

_He likes someone else. _

_Oh, no._

But instead of letting the worry sound in her voice, she tries to smile, as if she's happy for him, and says: "Do I know her?"

Newt nods.

"Yes, I think you know her the best of us all. I don't know much about her, only that she's from the Netherlands."

_The Netherlands? _

_I don't know anyone who comes from the Netherlands._

"Who is it?"

Newt takes a deep breath, and another one, before looking away.

"I... I can't say it. I can't get the name over my lips, I'm too nervous."

Lauren thinks a moment before she starts to guess.

"Is it... Nina?"

_She sounds like she's from my country_.

"No."

"Eh... Silvia?"

_No, that's impossible. She's Belgian._

"No. It isn't her."

His voice is so tensed right now, like a rubber band that is tightened too far.

_Dutch, Dutch... _

_I don't know anyone else who could come from the Netherlands._

Lauren feels her eyes grow huge when the penny drops.

"Is it... _me?_"

Newt bites his lip before he nods. "Yes."

His voice is so uncertain, as fragile as a thin layer of ice.

"What... What do you think of it?"

Lauren takes in a deep breath. She feels like her heart is going to explode of happiness.

_He likes me, too. _

_Not someone else. _

_He is in love with _me.

She can't help but smile and laugh softly.

"Newt, I'm in love with you, too," she says, not able to hide the happiness in her voice.

She can see the uncertainty disappear from his eyes, streaming out of his body. While smiling uncontrollably, she wraps her arms around him.

"Oh, Newt," she whispers into his shoulder.

They sit there for a while, on the floor, hugging, before Newt whispers: "I was so scared, you know. So scared that we were just friends, or maybe not even that. I... I knew that I was wrong when we were in the tree. I just didn't dare to ask you, and then that thing with Alby happened, and..."

"Well, good thing that Minho was there, then," Lauren interrupts him gently.

She feels Newt nod, and she hugs him even tighter.

"Oh, Newt..." she whispers again.

Then she releases him, a huge smile playing on her lips. "So... Are we a couple now?"

Newt hesitates, certainly not sure what to expect.

"Eh... If you want us to..."

His voice trails off, and Lauren grins even wider.

"Don't worry. I want us to be."

A joyful glittering flashes through his eyes, and Lauren is pretty sure that the same thing is happening to her when she sees that.

_This is so freaking adorable._

Then a more serious thought comes into her mind.

"Newt?" she asks.

The boy in front of her looks up, startled by the sudden mood change. "Yes?"

"You know we're star-crossed lovers, right?"

Newt nods a little sadly. "I know. But I can feel that I've made the right choice. I want to spend these last four days with you."

Lauren's heart melts as she sees the adorable way his lips form that last word, and she says softly: "I'll be there for you. Until the end."

She doesn't know who hugs the other first, but before she realizes it, they are holding each other in their arms again.

"Until the end."

**Aww... Yay! I seriously was contstantly giggling when I wrote this, it's so shucking adorable! :)**

**One of my friends said to me that her boyfriend told her that he was in love with her this way, and that she nearly had a heart attack, and I thought it would be suitable if I used it on the Laurewt couple (yep, they're a couple now! Yay!), seeing as Newt can be a little clumsy with the girls :)**

**Let me know what you think of it and have a really nice day!**


	32. Annoying Asians and East Side Ladders

Newt had been right when he said that someone was probably going to interrupt them: first Thomas walks in, who doesn't have any idea of what is going on, and then Minho, who loudly acclaims "Congratulations to the lucky couple!" and starts to dance through the dorm.

"You need to think up a nickname for each other!" Minho shouts enthusiastically. "Then _you_ are Newtie" – he points at Newt – "and _you_ are... eh..."

Lauren smirks at him. Newt face-palms.

Lauren pokes him playfully.

"Don't _you_ know a nice nickname for me, _Newtie?_"

"Please, don't," Newt growls in response, but Lauren can tell that he is having a hard time trying not to laugh.

Minho hasn't given up yet.

"Have you kissed yet?" he squeaks, giggling like a four-year-old girl.

Newt face-palms again, and Lauren rolls her eyes.

"No. We haven't kissed yet. Are you done now?" she asks, trying to sound annoyed; if she laughs, they'll never get rid of Minho.

"Nope," the Asian boy giggles, dancing through the room.

It looks ridiculous, and Lauren nearly bursts out in laughing. He looks like the worst ballerina Lauren has ever seen.

"I'm just so _happy_ for you!"

He squeezes Newt's cheeks.

"I'm gonna plan the wedding!"

He gambols out of the dorm.

Lauren looks at Newt, who is biting his lower lip to not burst out in laughing.

"Do you think he's being serious?" Lauren asks him.

"Nah," Newt replies. "He's just trying to be annoying, as always. I'm glad he has left, now."

"Yeah, me too," Thomas agrees.

It is the first time he says something since he came in; in that time, he was just sitting on the edge of his bed with a laptop. He closes the portable computer and stands up with the thing under his arm. He walks towards Newt and Lauren.

Thomas sighs before he says: "Lauren, I wasn't able to hack into my computer. There is a big chance that WICKED has seen everything we have seen. I don't know what that means for us, but I would prepare for the worst."

And with that, he walks out of the room. Lauren looks sideways at Newt.

To be honest, she doesn't care about anything else than him for the moment. Not about the Trials, not about WICKED, not about possibly being fired and send into the maze anyway.

Nothing.

She just wants to keep that happy feeling that she has that moment, as long as possible. But she doesn't really know what to do, and apparently Newt feels the same way.

"So... What are we going to do now?" he asks.

Lauren shrugs. "I don't know. But I am _not_ going outside again."

She glares at the window. It is still raining, even worse than just. No way that she is going into that storm.

Newt nods. "I'm okay with that."

Then it is silent for a moment, before Lauren gets an idea.

"Hey, I know something to do," she says, a frolic grin playing on her lips. "I saw a ladder at the east side of the building yesterday. I'd like to know where it leads to."

Newt's eyes grow bigger.

"Are you sure?" he asks, but curiosity sounds through his words. "We could get into great trouble."

Lauren rolls with her eyes. "Hey, guess what?"

"What?"

"I don't care," Lauren replies with a smirk. "Come on."

She stands up, holding Newt's hand, and forcing him to stand up as well. About half a second later, she is dragging him through the building, half-running towards the east side.

**I'm sorry people, I wasn't able to update yesterday because I had to study for a test... Please don't hate me ;)**


	33. Bad Idea

Newt has mixed feelings about exploring something here; part of him is curious, part of him rather doesn't get in trouble.

Of course – as usual – that first part wins.

He doesn't really remember how they actually got to the ladder; his head is still on cloud nine. It feels like he is twenty kilo lighter. He didn't know that his worry about telling Lauren how he felt was so heavy to him.

He almost bumps into her when she suddenly stops walking. She is still holding his hand, and her touch is sending tiny, electric shocks over his skin.

Lauren points at the ladder. It is a metal thing, close to the wall, and though Newt is sure that is wasn't there before, it looks old and rusty.

_Scary,_ he thinks, but he already feels the adrenalin rush into his body.

"Come on," he says, stepping forward. "Let's go."

Lauren squeezes his hand for a moment, and after Newt has squeezed back, the two of them walk towards the metal ladder.

After hesitating for a moment, Newt lets Lauren go first; he knows that it is polite to let ladies go first, but he doesn't know if that applies in this situation. It might be dangerous.

When she is downstairs and Newt has just put his foot on the first step of the ladder, he hears Lauren gasp, followed by a "Whoa..."

Newt nearly trips twice while hurrying to get down. The first thing he sees is darkness. The only light is coming from the square hole where they just came from. When his eyes get used to that, he sees Lauren, near a big, white... box?

He slowly walks towards her, carefully, trying not to fall over something.

"Lauren, what's that?" he asks, though he is pretty sure that she also doesn't know.

"I haven't the slightest idea," she mutters. She is staring at the box with huge eyes, almost as if in a trance.

She stretches out a hand to touch it, but as soon as her fingers make contact with the white material, a crack in the middle appears. Lauren jumps backwards, muttering something under her breath, a curse that Newt doesn't understand.

Meanwhile, the box starts to become a pale green, lighting the room up with a weak, scary glow. It takes Newt a moment before he realizes that the upper side of the box is slowly opening.

He stumbles backwards as he catches sight of dark, slimy skin, and something that looks like a metal arm or something, connected to a sharp knife. When the box has totally opened, Newt can see that the creature inside it is a kind of monster, with at least ten of those arms, all connected to creepy-looking things. It is lying perfectly still, like a toy in its case.

Newt looks at Lauren. Her face has gone paler – or does it seem so, because of the light? – and her eyes are big of horror.

"Lauren? What's wrong?" Newt asks carefully.

Lauren swallows hardly before she answers. "I told you about those monsters, called Grievers, right? Those things that'll be send up in the maze?"

Newt nods.

"Well," Lauren says, slower now, "_this_ is one of those Grievers."

Newt expects himself to be scared, but instead of that, he steps forward to take a better look. Now that this dangerous thing is quite harmless, he'd better be prepared, wouldn't he?

However, when he comes closer to the Griever, he sees how big it actually is; about as big as a normal car, big enough to swallow someone whole. Newt doesn't doubt that they can actually do that.

The arms are roughly two metres long, and there are various objects at the end of them. Knives, claws, scissors... The things are all deadly, but the needles are the creepiest. Newt doesn't even want to know what they are for.

The other ends of the arms disappear in the ugly, slimy skin, that looks like you could push someone in it and that person then would sink so far into it that he would disappear.

He gets pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps above him.

_Someone's coming._

His head twitches towards Lauren, who is looking at the ladder with big eyes. The footsteps come closer and closer, until they suddenly stop; the person must be standing right in front of the ladder now. Newt can hear him muttering to himself.

"Someone's left the ladder up again," the man murmurs quietly. "Stupid. The subjects could've seen it."

The man is silent for a moment, and then a click sounds. Newt just starts to wonder what that is when the ladder starts to disappear in the floor.

"Shit," Lauren mutters behind him, actually just too loudly. Newt can only agree.

How are they going to get out of there?

And as if it isn't bad enough yet, when the ladder has totally disappeared in the ground, a hidden shutter closes in the ceiling. It takes a moment before Newt realizes it.

_We're locked here. _

_They're going to find out that we were here, and we're going to get in trouble._

He wants to say something sarcastic, but he can't think of something, so he just stays silent. He looks at Lauren, who is staring at the place where the ladder just disappeared with panic in her eyes. Then she looks Newt in the eyes.

"How are we ever gonna get out of here?" she asks, her voice shaking.

Newt just opens his mouth to reply that he doesn't know when the greenish glow suddenly colours red.

"What the..." he mutters, but he doesn't finish his sentence.

He flinches when one of the Griever's arms jerks forward. The dangerous-looking claw bores itself in the floor and pulls the rest of the monstrous creature out of the box.

Newt can't move until Lauren drags him to the corner of the room. She points at a place on the wall, near the ceiling. It is a big button, that radiates a bright red light.

"There," she says. "It says 'In case of emergency'. I'd bet that it opens the shutter if you press it."

Newt nods.

"But how are we going to press it?" he asks, frustrated. "It's way too high to reach."

The Griever growls loudly, and Newt quickly glances behind them. It is still lying on the floor, but that won't last long; it is already trying to stand up. When Newt looks back at Lauren, he sees that she has made a kind of rung with her hands.

"I'll push you up," she says, nodding at her hands.

Without spilling another word, Newt steps on her hands with on foot. He keeps one hand on the wall for support; he doesn't want to let too much of his weight rest on Lauren, knowing that she has hurt her wrist when she tried to kill herself.

Carefully staying in balance, Newt pushes himself up. He is just high enough to reach the button, and he presses it without hesitating.

Lauren was right; the shutter immediately shoots open and the ladder also starts to appear out of the floor again. His relief, however, disappears after less than a second.

A loud growl and a clicking sound rings through the room. Newt doesn't have to look to know that the Griever has stood up, and that it is trying to attack them now.

He glances sideways at the ladder. It isn't going fast enough; their metal saver has only just reached Newt's height now.

The clicking sounds again.

"Newt!" Lauren yells. "_Jump!_"

Newt immediately knows what she means, and he jumps on the ladder. His knees bang against the hard material, but he doesn't care. He only cares about the Griever now, and about getting away without getting eaten.

Lauren is climbing now, too, but Newt can't help but gasp when he sees that the Griever is less than a metre away from her.

"Lauren!" he shouts, not able to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "Faster!"

His voice cracks of panic. The Griever comes closer every second. Lauren is climbing as fast as she can.

The ladder has reached the ceiling by now, but Newt refuses to leave the room. Not without Lauren.

One of the Griever's arms – one with a knife – flashes forwards and misses her by less than a centimetre. Lauren rushes upwards, breathing heavily. She has nearly reached Newt when a claw grabs her lower leg.

The Griever jerks her backwards; she just manages to keep hold of the ladder, but that won't last long. Before realizing what he is actually doing, Newt climbs back down as fast as he can. He starts to kick the Griever's arm, shouting loudly.

The creature immediately starts to fight back with knives and other claws. One of the knives makes a cut right across Newt's jaw, and another one on his temple. He barely feels any of it.

While the Griever is focusing on Newt, the claw lets go of Lauren's leg, just long enough for her to escape and reach the top of the ladder. The Griever releases a loud growl.

Newt understands that it is time to get out of there, and he quickly turns around. After kicking a claw away for the last time, he climbs out of the room as fast as he can.

The Griever screams out loudly beneath him, a horrible, frustrated sound that will probably follow Newt in his nightmares. He flops down on the floor, next to Lauren.

It is silent for a moment while they try to catch their breath.

"Well, we've learned something important today," Lauren says then. "Going into creepy basements with white boxes is a really bad idea."

Newt grins at her use of humour just after nearly being eaten by a half-machine.

"Come on," he says, standing up.

Lauren follows his lead.

"Let's just say we haven't seen anything."

Lauren nods in agreement.

When another growl of the Griever startles the both of them, they make their way back to the dorms as fast as they can.

**Okay, I haven't updated in a lot of days (Four? Five?) so I thought you deserved a longer chapter. And, of course, to celebrate that I've got over 3000 views now! Yaay!**

**Anyway, I've had three of my five tests now (yay again!) so I'm probably going to update more from now on. From tomorrow, I've got quite a lot of free time, so I can write again!**

**So you'll hopefully see me again in less than two days!**

**Bye!**


	34. Sunshine

The next day, when Lauren wakes up, a note is lying on her nightstand. Still half sleeping, she picks it up.

_You are free until the Maze Trials begin,_ it says in typed letters, with mister Carp's signature beneath it. She has to read it a couple of times before she realizes what the actual message is.

_I don't have to work for the next four days. _

_I can go back to sleep now._

With a small smile playing on her lips, she lies her head back down on the cushion and immediately falls asleep.

About an hour and a half later, the other girls – who just have had breakfast – come back into the dorm. Lauren wakes up with a sleepy "Hm?" and yawns.

_Something isn't right. Aren't they supposed to be in the Training room now?_

"Hey. Ave."

Lauren sits upright and looks at Avice, who is putting her hair in a ponytail next to her bed. She looks up with a cheerful glittering in her eyes.

"Why aren't you training now?" Lauren asks her.

Avice smiles.

"They just told us that the training is over," she responds. "We're free for the next couple of days. We are going outside now. The weather is really nice, you know. Wanna come with us?"

Lauren sleepily rubs her eyes at Avice's quick talking. She has gotten used to that over the past few years, but it is still hard to follow when you've just woken up.

"Maybe... Later," she replies vaguely.

Avice shrugs. "Okay. See ya!"

She dances away, to Charlie, who is joyfully chatting with a girl whose name Lauren has forgotten for a moment.

After watching the three other girls for a couple of seconds, Lauren climbs out of bed.

She decides right there, right then, that that day is going to be an awesome day.

Ten minutes later, when Lauren is standing in front of the mirror, braiding her hair, a polite knock on the door sounds.

"Can I come in?"

Lauren smiles as she hears Newt's voice.

"Yeah, sure," she responds friendly.

She can see the door open via the mirror, and Newt walking into the dorm.

"Hey," he says, sounding as cheerful as Avice just did. It sounds like he can't wait to do something.

Lauren knows that feeling; after she saw that the sun was shining brightly – not a single sign of the storm from yesterday – she had simply shot into her clothes. Unfortunately, she couldn't find any other clothes than the usual uniform, which is actually way too tight and way too warm to go outside, but there is nothing to do about it.

Newt, so she sees now, did find other clothes than his training outfit. He is wearing blue shorts and a light blue shirt. Lauren wonders where he got them. Maybe WICKED chose them for him. It looks good anyway.

"Hi," Lauren greets him.

"I heard that you're free, just like we are," Newt says. "Do you want to go outside? The others are going as well."

Lauren grins, finishing her braid and letting it rest over her shoulder.

"How could I _not_ want to be outside?" she asks, turning around. "I mean, the sun is shining. That's enough reason, isn't it?"

"You're right," Newt says, smiling broadly.

Lauren walks towards him and grips hold of his hand.

"Come on," she says gently. "I don't want to stay inside for another second."

After looking each other in the eyes, the two teenagers start to jog towards the glass double doors that are the exit of the Headquarters.

**I don't even know what I have to say about this chapter :) Bye!**


	35. Under Control

_She looks amazing._

That is all Newt can think as he and Lauren sit in the sand, trying to build a sandcastle. They don't succeed; every now and then, one of them makes a mistake and lets the castle collapse, because neither of them is really paying attention.

Newt just can't be busy with the sandcastle and look at Lauren at the same time. He also can't get his eyes away from her – she is just too pretty.

The way her braid dangles over her shoulder, and the tiny freckles on her cheeks and arms, and how her mouth bows up, more to the right side than to the left side, when she smiles...

Newt doesn't know how someone can be so perfect. It is impossible, but at the same time it is exactly the right way to describe her.

_Perfect. _

_She is perfect. _

And he is going to lose her.

Newt mentally punches that thought in the face. He doesn't want to think about that. Not now. There is enough time left to worry.

He blinks to get back in the reality.

Lauren is sitting on her knees, next to the recently collapsed sandcastle – another failed attempt – and she is drawing something in the sand with her finger. Newt stretches his neck to see what she is drawing.

It is a heart.

He feels his own heart jump up as he sees that. He silently sits down next to her, their sides against each other, and he lies his head on her shoulder. He watches her write.

Her handwriting isn't perfect, even nearly careless, but it belongs to Lauren, so it is also perfect, Newt decides. When he reads what she has written, he feels his heart melt.

_I love you, Newt._

He smiles uncontrollably and stretches his hand out to write what he thinks.

_I love you more._

Lauren giggles and writes: _I love you most_.

"That's unfair," Newt says out loud, still grinning like an idiot.

"No, it's not," Lauren replies, half laughing. "_This_ is unfair."

Before Newt realizes what happens, she has pushed him into the water. He falls forward, with his face in the sand, and he immediately is soaking wet.

"Damn, that's bloody cold!" he shouts out, though he nearly chokes in his own laughter. Actually, he is lying; he isn't feeling cold at all. His heart is too warm for that, and Lauren is the reason.

She is standing with her feet in the sea, laughing. She doesn't notice anything until Newt spatters water on her.

Immediately looking up, she tries to act offended. She doesn't really succeed, because her eyes are still glittering with joy.

"How do you dare?" she yells, her voice breaking because she is giggling so hard. "You're gonna pay for that, young man!"

Newt can't help but squeal like a little child when Lauren runs into the water, hurling towards him with a frolic look in her eyes. Before knowing what she is going to do, Lauren throws a wave of water over him. He sweeps his – already wet – hair out of his eyes and prepares for a serious water fight.

Instead of that, he is about to get into a real fight.

He discovers that when someone suddenly taps his shoulder. When he turns around, he sees Alby stand behind him. His hands are firmly planted on his hips, and he isn't wearing a shirt. For some reason, that makes him look quite terrifying. His nose is hidden behind a small, plastic cap.

Two other boys are standing behind them, with their arms folded and aggressive looks on their faces. Newt recognizes them as Gally and a kid named Brian. He can't see them anymore when Alby steps right in front of him.

"Hello, Newt," he says with a dreadful smirk. "Having a nice time with your _slut?_"

Gally and Brian chuckle mockingly.

Newt frowns. Something is wrong, he can feel it.

The two boys laugh too much at the same time, and Alby's voice sounds like he has a hard time speaking the words out. What is going on here?

Newt folds his arms.

"What do you want, Alby?" he asks. He hates it how low and unstable his voice sounds.

The dark-skinned boy doesn't answer. He simply draws his arm back and punches. Newt can dodge Alby's fist just in time.

He attacks again, and this time he hits the side of Newt's head. Black spots dance in front of his eyes, but they disappear fast enough to duck in time.

Alby's arm skims over Newt's head.

He jumps up, draws his foot back and kicks the older boy where a boy definitely doesn't want to be kicked. When Alby collapses, Newt grabs his wrists and twists his arms on his back.

"What is wrong with you?" he yells in his ear.

Why is Alby acting like this?

The boy doesn't answer. When Newt looks around, he sees that Brian and Gally are still standing where they have been standing the whole time. Lauren has her hands in her pockets, her expression blank.

Three pair of strong hands pull Newt away from Alby. When Newt looks up, he sees that the hands belong to three people in WICKED uniform. They walk away, towards the Headquarters, and Alby, Gally and Brian follow them without saying anything.

Newt frowns and looks at Lauren.

"Didn't you think those three were acting weird?" he asks her.

Lauren nods.

"Yeah, I saw it, too," she replies. "It seemed like Alby was hesitating to do something. As if something was controlling him."

She glances behind her, where the six people just go into the building.

"How about following them?" she asks.

Newt nods. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

They run after the small group. As soon as they get inside the Headquarters, they slow down and try to act as inconspicuously as possible, walking about three metres behind the six people.

When they stop, Newt and Lauren kneel down behind a corner. They can hear two voices. One man's voice and one woman's; apparently they have came across another person, because the group only existed of men. Newt tries to follow everything they say.

"And? How did the second test go?" the woman asks.

The man answers. "The new function works excellent. It'll make a really good new Variable."

_What are they talking about?_

"Yes, I believe you," the woman responds. "You only weren't supposed to bring the boys back here. Just switch the Swipe off for a moment, and then the control is gone."

"I... I didn't know that, madam," the man stutters. He sounds nervous; Newt thinks that the woman is his boss or something.

"I'll let them go back outside immediately," the man says.

Less than a second later, Alby, Gally and Brian run into the corridor where Newt and Lauren are. They are running perfectly synchronic, showing the fact that they are being under control.

The footsteps of two more people startle Newt. He quickly glances into the hallway and sees that two of the WICKED people walk towards them.

The woman is standing in the middle of the corridor, and the third man is typing nervously on a laptop.

Without spilling any words, Newt and Lauren sprint after the three teenagers. They are outside just in time to see them collapse, all at the same time.

Newt stops abruptly as he sees that.

Is this what happens when the control gets turned off?

Still startled, he watches the three boys struggle up, holding the back of their necks with painful faces.

Newt carefully walks forwards. He doesn't really know what his plan is; he just wants to know what exactly happened.

Alby's head twitches to the side as he sees Newt. A deep guilt is visible in his eyes.

Then the most unexpected thing _ever_ happens: Alby starts to cry. Newt stares in shock as he watches the dark-skinned, intimidating boy bury his face in his hands.

"I'm so sorry, Newt," he sobs, his voice cracking. "I couldn't control what I was doing... They made me fight you, and call your girlfriend a slut, and..."

He doesn't finish his sentence, cut off by a new crying fit.

Newt is surprised by the way Alby calls Lauren 'your girlfriend', like it is the most normal thing on the world. With something that nearly is a smile, Newt realizes that it is true.

He pulls himself out of those thoughts and thinks about what Alby and the WICKED people said.

"Did they also do that the first time we fought? I mean, controlling you?" he asks.

Alby nods, his whole body trembling and shaking. Newt looks at Lauren, who is standing behind him with her eyebrows raised. She walks forwards and lies a hand on his shoulder.

"I told you, it didn't make any sense," she says quietly. "He didn't know me."

Newt nods. She is right.

Alby looks up for a moment, sees Lauren, and starts to sob even harder.

"I didn't mean to insult you," he says to her, his voice filled with guilt. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Lauren says, gently as always. "I didn't take it personal. It's not your fault."

Alby looks at her with disbelief.

"T-Thank you," he stutters.

Newt just stands there, feeling slightly uncomfortable; it doesn't happen every day that the most frightening guy you know caves in in front of your eyes. He doesn't really know what to do.

Alby straightens his back and wipes the tears from his red face, seeming to get himself together. He looks at the ground, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," he mutters for the last time. Then he leaves.

Newt and Lauren share an _okay-that-was-kinda-weird-_look as they watch the dark-skinned boy walk into the Headquarters.

"Poor boy," Lauren whispers then. "Does he know about the Trials?"

Newt nods, though he doesn't really know where that question came from.

"Yes. Everyone knows. Thanks to you."

Only when he has already said it and Lauren pales, he realizes that it must sound quite insulting.

"No offense," he adds with a comforting smile. "Thanks to you, we know what to expect. I'm pretty sure we're all really thankful."

Lauren's shoulders slump.

Newt grips hold of her hand.

"Come on," he says, grinning. "Let's try to build the sandcastle again."

Lauren nods, smiling as well, and they run towards the small stroke of sand.

**Okay, I think this is one of the weirdest chapters I've ever written :) Gosh, I have no idea where the idea of Alby crying came from, but it suddenly was there and I just had to write it down. I think I'm way past the Gone.**

**Anyway, have a nice day!**


	36. Birthday

The next morning, when Lauren wakes up, she looks right in Teresa's face. She grins.

"Good morning," she says, starting to pull her out of her bed.

Lauren blinks with her sleepy eyes.

"What the... Teresa, what time is it?"

"Six in the morning," the black-haired girl replies, like it is the most normal thing in the world. She drags Lauren to her feet.

Still half sleeping, she yanks her wrist free, ignoring the sharp pain that flashes through her arm. Teresa puts her hands on her hips, looking frustrated.

"Hey, listen, if you don't come with me, we're never gonna get in time," she says.

Lauren is even more confused now; what is going on?

"What do you mean, 'in time'? In time for what?" she asks.

Teresa sighs.

"Damn. They didn't tell you, did they?"

"Tell me _what?_" Lauren asks, starting to feel angry.

"It's Newt's birthday today, and we're going to throw a surprise party," Teresa explains, letting Lauren's mouth drop wide open.

_It's Newt's birthday today. _

_He didn't tell me. _

_Why didn't he tell me?_

She doesn't have much time to feel indignant, because Teresa starts to pull at her lower arm again.

"Please, come o-on," she whines. "They're _waiting_ for us."

This time, Lauren stands up.

"Finally," the other girl mutters, rolling her eyes. She drags Lauren towards the hallway, and then towards a room further in the corridor.

In the meantime, Lauren's head is still lost in thoughts.

_"Why didn't he tell me that it was his birthday?" _

_"Maybe because we didn't have time for that? There are more important things in life, you know. Like being sent into a maze in three days." _

_"But... It's still bad. He just could've told me."_

Teresa knocks twice on a door. After it swings open, she pulls Lauren inside.

The whole room is filled with people; Lauren spots Thomas, and Minho, and Alby. There are a lot of boys, and Lauren and Teresa are the only girls.

The walls are covered in wreaths and there are some balloons – where did they get those?

Not really knowing what to expect, Lauren walks over to Thomas.

"Don't you think Newt is gonna be confused when he sees that the whole dorm is empty?" she asks him, more because she wants to have a subject to talk about than to know the answer.

Thomas grins and nods.

"That's exactly what we want," he replies. "If he sees that we're gone, this will be the first place he will look. We used to hide here when we were little kids."

Lauren just wants to say something when Minho hisses: "He's coming! Be quiet!"

The talking stops and everyone silently listens to the footsteps, which are coming closer every second.

When the door swings open, everybody starts to yell at the same moment.

**I just felt like writing, so I made another (smaller) chapter for you!**

**How do you think Newt is gonna react?**


	37. Ghost Wandering

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

The loud sound of shouting people startles Newt. He doesn't have any idea how to react, so he just stands there, in the doorway, with the doorknob in his hand.

Everyone in the room is looking at him, waiting for him to say something.

For some unexplainable reason, his mind wanders back to a certain birthday, exactly five years ago.

He remembers walking down the stairs, still half asleep, and the walls covered in colourful wreaths. Sitting down on the breakfast table, with his father, and his mother, and Lily, his older sister, to eat cake.

There was a certain knock on the door, one simple knock, and it would change his entire life, but he didn't know it yet, because he was a little boy from eight years old. If nobody had knocked on that door, he would be celebrating his birthday with his family, right now.

Tears pop up in his eyes. Biting his lip, he slowly lets go of the doorknob and turns around. Without saying anything, he sprints back to the dorm as fast as he can.

He slams the door shut and crouches against the closed door, his knees against his chest, just like he did when he first came here.

He hides the first crying fit by burying his face in his forearms, the tears making wet spots on his sleeves. This is how it goes every single year; Newt simply can't let go of the memory of his family. It is always there, as a ghost wandering in the back of his mind, but it always is the strongest on his birthday.

Probably because it was his birthday when he saw them for the last time.

A second crying fit hits him, making his body tremble and his spine abrade against the hard material of the door. He had hoped so much that they would forget his birthday this year, so that he wouldn't have to collapse in front of everyone. Again.

That is the reason why he didn't tell Lauren about it, but apparently someone else told her that it is his birthday today.

_They probably all think that I am a loser. And I am._

A surprisingly bitter thought follows.

_It doesn't even matter. _

_We're all going to forget about this, anyway. _

_We're all going to forget about everything._

He is so lost in his thoughts that he only hears that someone is coming when that person knocks on the door.

"No!" Newt yells back, his voice choked by tears. "Stay away from me!"

"Newt, it's me," Lauren's soft voice replies. "Please, can I come in?"

Newt bites his lower lip to stifle a sob. He actually doesn't want her to see him like this, but after a moment of silence, he whispers: "Okay."

He shoves to a spot next to the wall to prevent the door from hitting his back.

Lauren slowly steps into the dorm. Without saying anything, she quietly closes the door and sits down on the floor, her back against the wall, next to Newt. She looks at him sideways.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she asks, the gentle tone never disappearing from her voice.

Newt wipes a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand.

"I... It's just..."

He doesn't really know how to say what he feels.

"It was on my birthday when I saw my family for the last time, Lauren."

Her eyebrows bow up in sympathy and she wraps one arm around his shoulders.

"I'm so sorry about that," she says quietly. "And I understand it. I think we all do."

Newt looks up at her, surprised at her words.

"What?"

"Well, aren't we all taken away by our family?" Lauren asks him, still softly. "Don't we all have someone to miss?"

Then her facial expression changes, as if she has said something that has insulted him, though he wouldn't know what that is.

"I... I'm not saying you're the same as the others, Newt," she says, nearly tripping over her own words. "You're different, you know. You're special, and I totally understand why you are sad. I really do."

Newt lets those words penetrate for a moment. He notices that he is already feeling better; the memory of his family is already fading a bit.

"Thank you, Lauren," he says quietly, not really knowing what else to say.

The two of them sit there for a while, silently, Lauren's arm around Newt's shoulders. After a couple of minutes, Newt grips hold of Lauren's hand and stands up.

He isn't feeling sad at all anymore; now he is nearly happy. He doesn't exactly know what happened inside his head, but it must be something good.

"Come on," he says to Lauren, grinning. "I think I'm supposed to be celebrating a birthday right now."

Lauren smiles, that wonderful smile that lights up her eyes and makes a wave of happiness flow through Newt's heart.

"All right," she says. "Let's go, then."

Without spilling any more words, they start to run.

**Have a really nice day, please leave a review if you want to let me know what you think of this story!**

**Bye! :)**


	38. A Thousand Years

That evening, Lauren is leaning against the wall in the dorm. The boys' sleeping place is unrecognizable; the bunk beds are shoves against one wall, there is music, and disco lights, and a lot of other things that Lauren hasn't seen in five years.

She has been wondering for a while where and how they got all that stuff. When she asked Minho about it, he pointed at an adult man, who was standing near the door with a plastic beaker in his hand, and told her that that guy is a WICKED doctor. They have convinced him to go to the closest city and buy some party stuff.

A really good plan, Lauren thinks. Now Newt has the birthday party he deserves, and everyone is having a lot of fun.

When the music first started, nearly nobody wanted to dance, but after a couple of minutes, a small group of boys had the courage to start dancing, and the others followed their lead quite quickly.

Lauren is the only one who hasn't danced yet – she knows how ridiculous her dance moves look. So she just stands there, leaning against the wall, watching Newt dance with some of his friends.

He has asked Lauren a couple of times if she wanted to dance with him, but she always said no. She actually wants him to be there with her, but she doesn't want to take him away from his friends; it is his birthday, and he can do what he wants.

Taking a sip of her soda, Lauren listens how the music changes. This time, it's not a dance song.

This song starts with piano music and string instruments. Lauren can feel the surprise in the dorm; this doesn't sound like something you would expect to hear on a party.

She looks up when she sees Newt come towards her. He holds out a hand.

"Hey," he says softly. "Do you want to dance?"

Lauren hesitates.

Maybe it's because of the music, maybe it's because the moment is so perfect, maybe it's because of Newt, but she nods and grips hold of his hand.

Newt smiles and starts to drag her to some spot. When they stand still, they are in the middle of the dorm, facing each other, about fifteen centimetres between them. Everyone is looking at them.

Lauren bends towards Newt and uncertainly whispers: "Newt, I can't dance."

Newt grins comfortingly.

"Don't worry," he says. "Me neither."

He loops his arms around Lauren's neck, and she carefully lays her hands on his sides.

Moved by some unknown force, they slowly start to turn in circles, shifting their feet every time a few centimetres and rocking each other in their arms. Lauren giggles nervously; she must look ridiculous.

"Newt, everyone is watching," she whispers shyly.

Newt smiles again.

"Don't worry about them," he responds, on the same quiet tone. "Just look at me."

Lauren takes a deep breath and locks eyes with her dance partner. This time, she doesn't feel like she should break the eye contact at all. She wants to keep staring into those wonderful, soft brown eyes forever.

Still slowly dancing – yes, Lauren realizes that they are actually dancing now – she listens to the music, knowing that the lyrics exactly fit them.

_I have died every day_

_Waiting for you_

_Darling, don't be afraid_

_I have loved you for a thousand years_

_I'll love you for a thousand more_

_All along I believed_

_I would find you_

_Time has brought your heart to me_

_I have loved you for a thousand years_

_I'll love you for a thousand more_

Lauren feels that she is smiling uncontrollably. She is feeling incredibly happy at that moment, in Newt's arms, slowly dancing on music that is so romantic that she would have gotten sick if she wasn't unbelievably in love.

Newt is so close to her, only centimetres away from her, and he looks so perfect.

His blond hair is so perfectly tousled, and he is wearing that blue shirt and those blue jeans that look so perfect on him, and he is smiling that perfect smile, and those perfect, dark eyes, and those perfect long eyelashes, and the way he is looking at her...

Lauren doesn't know how to think straight anymore.

And she doesn't have to; the only thing she has to do now, is dancing, and trying to prevent her heart from exploding of happiness. When the song stops, everybody starts to clap.

Barely audible over the loud applause, Newt bends towards Lauren and whispers: "I love you."

Lauren smiles, surprised at the unexpected words, but responds: "I love you more."

"I love you most," Newt says, grinning.

Lauren smiles even wider and wraps her arms around Newt. Some catcalls sound from the crowd.

"I still love you more," she whispers teasingly in his ear. "I love you more than most."

"That's unfair," Newt whispers back, but Lauren can feel that he is smiling.

They let go of each other when a deep man's voice sounds from behind them.

"I'm sorry, kids, but you really have to go to sleep, now," the man says.

Lauren doesn't have to look to know that it is the guy that has been with them for the whole evening. The guy that has gotten them all the stuff for the party.

"My colleagues are not going to be happy if they catch you staying up so long," the WICKED man continues. "Put on your pajamas, and quick."

He turns around and walks out of the door. The boys trudge to the bathroom when he is gone.

Newt looks at Lauren, a happy grin playing on his lips. She loves to see him like this.

"This was the best birthday I've ever had," he says softly.

Lauren can clearly hear the meaning in his words; he is being serious, she knows that. He _really_ thinks that this is the best birthday he ever had, and for some reason, that makes Lauren very happy.

"Well, then I'm glad that I am here," she says, on the same gentle tone. "At your best birthday ever."

"Yeah," Newt agrees absently. "I'm glad you're here, too."

Then, completely unexpected, he stands on his toes and gives Lauren a kiss on her cheek.

She feels her eyes grow huge, and she doesn't remember how to speak properly anymore. Grinning shyly, Newt turns around to the bathroom.

"Goodnight, Lauren," he says.

"Night," Lauren replies, not able to say anything more. She turns around to the door, nearly tripping over her own feet while doing so, and quickly stumbles into the hallway.

When she is out of the dorm, she exhales dreamily and leans against the wall. She is smiling uncontrollably.

_Oh. My. Goodness. _

_This is exactly why I love him so much; he always knows how to make me speechless. _

_I hate him for the same reason._

Lauren shakes her head at that last thought. No, that isn't true. She doesn't hate him.

She only hates it when he makes her forget how to speak.

Grinning even wider, she carefully touches the spot on her cheek, where Newt just kissed her.

And, while feeling like wings could be growing out of her back every second, she starts to walk towards the girls' dorm.


	39. Splinter

"Call up to all WICKED employees. Come to the ladder at the east side of the building at eight o'clock."

Lauren sleepily opens her eyes when she hears the voice sound from the speakers. It takes her a second to realize the meaning of the words.

_Eight o'clock. _

_I've got half an hour. _

_I need to get out of bed._

She sits upright, grunting really unwomanly.

While yawning, she stand up and trudges towards the bathroom to change into her uniform.

Exactly thirty minutes later, Lauren is standing next to the metal ladder at the east side of the Headquarters, along with at least a hundred of her colleagues. None of them seems to know what is going on, except a small group of people, standing around the ladder. They are carrying big bags with them.

One of those people, a broad, bald man, looks at his watch.

"It's eight o'clock," he says, raising his voice so that everyone can hear him. "Follow me."

The man turns around and starts to climb down the ladder. When no one else goes after him, Lauren steps forward and follows his lead, despite that the room beneath the ladder gives her goose bumps.

But now the lights are turned on, and the white box with the Griever is closed. Lauren can see now that there are more of those boxes. The whole left wall is filled with them.

She doesn't want to know what will happen when all of those Grievers are being released, and that is exactly what is going to happen. She doesn't want to think about it.

The man that went down the ladder before her, starts to walk. Lauren follows him. When she looks over her shoulder, she sees that the next colleague is already climbing down the ladder.

This one is wearing a black suit, showing that he is a guard. He is quite muscular, and he would've been attractive if his face wasn't that ugly.

Shivering, Lauren looks forward again.

_Ugh. I'd bet no one here could even come close to Newt._

They walk through the Griever room for another couple of minutes, before they come at a long pair of stairs. Lauren can't even see the top of it.

The man she has to follow, starts to walk up them. Sighing, Lauren goes after him. It takes them at least ten minutes before they come at a big shutter.

The bald man presses a button on a remote and the shutter swings open.

Lauren can't help but gasp at the view.

They are standing in a narrow corridor, with at both sides huge, concrete walls, at least six metres high. It gives Lauren a spontaneous attack of claustrophobia. With a shock, she realizes that she must be in the maze.

She is in the place where the Grievers will be released, where the subjects will be put in two days, where they will have to find a way out.

Lauren stands still for a moment, partly because she is so shocked that she can't move and partly to wait until her colleagues have caught up with her.

Then she walks on, but she doesn't say anything, still too stunned to get even one word over her lips. They take a lot of turns, every time going into another corridor that looks exactly the same as the last one. Lauren is sure she would have gotten hopelessly lost if she were here alone.

By the time they have reached the last corridor, Lauren's watch says that it is half past eleven.

To her surprise, the end of the hallway doesn't show another hallway. It shows a floor existing of stones, and green grass. When the group walks into the place, Lauren feels her mouth drop open.

This isn't what she expected.

This is _not_ what she expected.

The place – it must be the Glade, the place in the middle of the maze – is quite beautiful.

Lauren looks around. The Glade is surrounded by four concrete walls, each of them covered in a thick layer of ivy and with an opening in the middle. There is a wooden house in the north west corner, and in the opposite corner are small fields of grass surrounded by fences, with a small building in the middle of it. The south west corner is hidden behind trees. Exactly in the middle of the Glade is a hole in the ground, about four square metres.

The man who is in front walks towards it, and the other people go stand in a circle around him. He puts the bags he was carrying around down on the ground.

"All right, everyone," the man says. "As you probably have guessed, we are in the maze, and this place" – he gestures at everything around them – "is the Glade. We have brought you here because you need to help us prepare the Glade for the subjects, who will be here in two days. There are no big things to do, just small tasks, like some cleaning and removing weeds from the Gardens. Everything has to look like it is brand new."

A couple of men behind Lauren sigh deeply; they probably don't like cleaning. Lauren doesn't really mind the tasks. Of course she would rather be with Newt or with her friends, but at least she can do something useful now.

It is completely silent in the Glade for a moment, until the bald man puts his hands in his sides and shouts: "Get to work, people! There is a lot to do!"

The crowd seems to wake up from its trance, and Lauren's colleagues walk towards the bags in the middle of the circle. Lauren follows their lead and grabs a bunch of white blankets.

Guessing where those belong, she walks towards the wooden house.

Inside, it is small, but bigger than Lauren expected, and lit by dim lightbulbs. There are a couple of doors in each wall and a set of stairs at the end of the hallway. All of the doors are standing wide open, and after peering into the rooms, Lauren discovers that there are no beds on this floor; no place to put the blankets.

There are only rooms with desks and chairs, and a room with chairs set in a half circle, and a room without any furniture except for a wooden box.

Shrugging, Lauren walks towards the stairs. There have to be beds upstairs; where else will the subjects have to sleep?

She feels a small sting in her heart when she thinks that.

_Subjects._

The word reminds her that this is an experiment, a cruel experiment to get a cure to the Flare, but they don't even know if this is going to work.

It is not fair.

Lauren has lost her parents to the Flare, and now she is going to lose even more people while trying to find a cure for it.

Lauren feels that her head is drifting away from the reality, so she tries to focus on what she is doing right now.

_Come on, Lauren. _

_Search beds, get rid of those blankets, be useful. _

_You're helping. _

_What if they get here and there are no blankets on the beds? _

_They'll get cold._

Sighing, Lauren starts to walk up the stairs.

She tries to make her task sound really important to herself, to prevent herself from thinking too much again.

Luckily, there are beds on the first floor. Lauren puts the blankets down on a chair, puffing heavily; the sheets appeared to be heavier than she thought when she had to lift them up higher to not trip over them.

Putting her hands on her sides to catch her breath, she looks around in the room.

It is quite a small place, about six square metres, with wooden walls, a narrow window, and the only furniture are the bed and the chair. She picks up one of the blankets and starts to make the bed, carefully tucking the ends in and folding the white cloth just like her mother used to do.

That is how Lauren works in every room.

She sees that each room is the same: wooden bed, simple wooden chair, no lamps, the bed standing against the wall under the window and the chair next to that.

In the last room on the floor, the sixth room, Lauren notices a tiny difference.

The chair, which should be standing with the back against the wall and next to the bed, like in the other rooms, is standing in the middle of the room, facing the bed.

Lauren puts the last blanket down on the bed and quickly completes her job.

When she lies her hand down on the back of the chair to shove it back on its place, she feels a small flicker in the back of her head. Her vision becomes completely black, except for a tiny bit of light, a splinter of an image, as if through half closed eyes.

It disappears immediately, but not fast enough to prevent Lauren's brain from registering what she has seen.

She saw Newt, sitting on a chair, next to a bed – in exactly _that_ room, if Lauren understands it right.

He looked older, one, maybe two years older, and his hair was longer than it is now. His right leg was stretched, white bandage around his foot and disappearing under his pant – what happened to him? – but that is not what makes Lauren worry the most.

It are the tears in his eyes, the hopeless sadness in his expression, that send tiny daggers of pain into Lauren's heart.

Why is he so sad?

What happened to him?

And, maybe even more important, why has she seen this?

It must be an image from the future, there is no doubting that. That realization makes even more question pop up in Lauren's head.

When is this going to happen?

Can she prevent this from happening, Newt from being so hopeless?

Is she actually really there, with him?

Her head hurts from thinking that much, and she thinks to feel a small bit of dizziness.

_What is happening?_ she wonders.

_How is it possible that I see things from the future? _

_This is so weird._

She can't think anything more, because strong hands pull her back to the reality, out of the total blackness.

Literally.

When Lauren opens her eyes, she sees a pair of man's hands on her sides. Startled, she jerks herself free.

_What the hell is this guy thinking?_

She looks up to the stranger, immediately noticing that the man is a WICKED guard, according to his black uniform. He has got short, spiky black hair, dark blue eyes, and he looks kinda shocked.

"Whoa, whoa," he says, holding his hands up. "Calm down. What happened?"

"What do you mean, 'what happened'?" Lauren replies, on the edge of snapping. "What happened to _you_, making you think that you can just touch me?"

"Well, I walked past this room and saw you suddenly collapse," the guard says, the slightest bit of irritation in his voice, along with... worry? "I could catch you just in time. Otherwise you would've crashed into the floor."

Lauren frowns. She hadn't noticed that she was falling at all.

"Eh, well, thanks," she mutters, not really knowing what else to say.

The guard smiles, showing a flash of white teeth.

"You're welcome," he says friendly. Maybe a little _too_ friendly.

He grabs Lauren's hand in a sudden move – Lauren is having a hard time not stepping back – and shakes it.

"I'm Michael, by the way."

"Lauren," Lauren murmurs back.

"Well, it was nice to meet you," Michael says, letting go of her hand. "I think I'd go back to my job, now."

"Yeah," Lauren says quietly, watching Michael walk towards the door with big steps and disappear into the hallway.

She leans against the wall.

_Well, that were a lot of weird things to happen in five minutes. _

_God, that Michael guy is weird. _

_I think he likes me a little too much._

Still with her head in her thoughts, she starts to walk back towards the middle of the Glade.

**Okay, I wasn't sure if I was going to put this chapter in the story, because it's a little weird, and I can't really explain what happened to Lauren. I just wanted to show you that she was in the room where she (SPOILER!) died, eventually. So, yeah, please let me know what you think of it. I think that it's weird.**


	40. Never Gonna Say Goodbye

Newt realizes it the moment he opens his eyes.

_This is my last day. _

_The Trials start tomorrow._

It is that thought that makes him jump out of his bed, shoot into his clothes and sprint out of the dorm. He shoelaces still untied, he runs through the corridors, towards the girls' dorm.

It is still early in the morning – only the smallest tip of the sun has showed itself – but this is not a day to waste any time. It is his last day with Lauren. And his last day with his memories, but he doesn't have time to worry about that.

He is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't even notice Lauren – who suddenly runs into the corridor – before she nearly crashes into him. They both can stop just in time, sharing a surprised look.

"Hey, Newt," Lauren pants, grinning. "I was just coming to you."

"That's funny, because I was just coming to _you_," Newt replies.

"Oh," Lauren says with a little laugh. Her smile, however, fades less than a second after that.

_She is thinking about the same thing as I do,_ Newt thinks. _We're going to lose each other tomorrow._

He quickly grabs her hand, gently pulling her towards the doors of the Headquarters.

"Come on," he says, trying to sound less desperate as he feels. "Let's go do something fun."

Lauren smiles, looking happy with that idea, and she goes with him. They are running only a second later.

It becomes a lovely, warm day.

Lauren and Newt spent the morning and afternoon at the beach, particularly swimming; Lauren had to tell herself to _Stop the freaking staring!_ when Newt threw his shirt away because he was too hot.

Like, literally, he _was feeling_ too hot so he put his shirt off and he _looked_ too hot so Lauren couldn't get her eyes off him.

She could only look away when she was blushing so heavily that Newt thought that she got sunburnt.

They had a lot of fun, and they both enjoyed the day a lot, but the time went way too fast. Before they even realize it, they are sitting on a bench, at the edge of the forest, watching the sun set.

Well, _Newt_ is watching the sun set. Lauren is looking at Newt, trying to grasp every memory of him that she can get. Maybe it is selfish to keep him for herself for the whole day, but for now, she doesn't care about it.

She wants to remember how he is, how he talks, how he is with her, before they get separated forever. So, looking sideways at the perfect boy next to her, she tries to memorize every detail of him.

The way the orange sunlight makes his carelessly combed hair look even brighter coloured.

How his soft brown eyes look at the wonderful sky, too amazed to say anything.

The usual, perfect smile that pulls the corners of his lips up, like it is doing right now.

It makes Lauren feel horrible to know that she is going to lose him. They only have hours left, together.

She is so lost in her thoughts that she nearly misses what Newt says.

"This is my last night here, isn't it?" he asks her.

Lauren nods sadly.

She wishes that it wasn't their last night.

She wishes that they could be together, for as long as they wanted, instead of being forced to leave each other.

She sights quietly.

"It is. They'll wake you up at exactly five o'clock in the morning to..."

She sighs again, not able to speak out the terrible truth. Biting her lip, she looks away and hides behind her hair.

"Newt, from tomorrow, you won't remember me anymore."

She hates to hear that her voice sounds choked, and she hates it even more when a tear streams down her face. She doesn't even know _what_ exactly she hates so much. Probably just the universe.

Lauren sniffs quietly when Newt's hand cups her cheek, gently forcing her to look at him. His thumb carefully wipes the tear away.

Lauren looks up at him. His eyes are filled with tears, but he isn't crying.

"Don't cry," he says softly. "Please, Lauren. I don't want you to cry. This may be our last night together, probably for a long time, but we'll see each other again. I promise."

"We are never gonna say goodbye," Lauren whispers, smiling through the new tears that are leaking from her eyes.

She knows that it isn't true what she said – of course they will have to say goodbye – but she is hoping for a wonder so badly that she puts the thought away.

"Ever," Newt agrees with her.

Then he comes closer – close enough for Lauren to see the tiny golden speckles in his dark eyes and feel his breath on her lips – and he kisses her.

Not just a small kiss, no, a _real_ kiss.

Lauren doesn't know why, but she feels like the moment is just perfect. There couldn't be a better moment for a first kiss.

And, Lauren realizes with a shock, this will probably also be their last kiss.

A whole spectrum of emotions flashes through her body; sadness, powerlessness, despair, fear. But over all of that is love, and everything that belongs to it.

Lauren is feeling incredibly happy and unbelievably sad at the same moment, and the mix is driving her crazy. But she puts it all away, trying to remember everything what happens that moment, only to discover that she feels like Newt is the only thing, for her, that exists.

He is her everything.

The tears come so suddenly that she doesn't know what to do. She is forced to pull away, because she started to sob so hard that she couldn't breathe. When the crying finally stops, after a couple of minutes of silence, Lauren grips hold of Newt's hands, looking him in the eyes.

"I love you, Newt," she says, her voice breaking.

Newt smiles carefully, that perfect, special smile that he only uses when Lauren is around.

"I love you, too, Lauren," he replies. "And I'm going to miss you. So much."

The sun disappears behind the horizon, and Newt and Lauren sit in the darkness, which surrounds them like a warm blanket.

**I was seriously crying when I wrote this. For the second time.**

**I'm already warning you: there's some heartbreaking on its way. Just so you know. (but you probably already knew, because Newt is going to be sent up in the Maze, and both him and Lauren are going to be sad :'( )**


	41. The Next One

"Newt. Newt, wake up."

A pair of hands shakes Newt's shoulder. He sleepily opens his eyes.

_What time is it?_

It must be really early in the morning – it's darker in the dorm than usually – but Newt notices three or four empty beds.

With a shock, he realizes that they have already taken those boys away to wipe their memory.

He is the next one.

A part of him wants to fight himself free from the hands that are still holding him, but he doesn't. He knows that he will only get in trouble even more.

He focuses on the face that is floating above him – the kind-of-familiar face of a woman with red hair – and listens to what she says.

"Get up, Newt," she says, her voice gentle but strict at the same time. "Come with us."

Newt nods and steps out of his bed, the floor cold beneath his bare feet. Two guards in black uniforms go stand next to him.

_To prevent that I escape_, Newt realizes. Not that he was planning on that, but it still makes him feel even more captured.

The woman starts to walk, and Newt goes after her, the two guards by his sides. The four of them walk through several corridors, deeper into the building. Newt recognizes the part where the floor becomes a soft green colour.

They walk past the sick room, and then the woman walks through a double pair of greenish doors. Newt hesitates for a moment, not really knowing why, until one of the guards pushes him into the room with his broad shoulder.

The area behind the doors appears to be quite a small room, about as big as a classroom, with five beds standing against one wall – all of them empty – and another pair of double doors in the wall across the room.

The woman has stopped walking, and she has turned around so that she is facing Newt now.

"You have got half an hour to take a shower," she says. "Do not try to escape. All doors will be locked. We will pick you up when it is time."

Then she walks away, her high heels clicking on the floor. She and the guards walk out of the room. The doors close behind them, and a click sounds through the room; the doors are locked. Then it is silent.

Newt suddenly feels really small, standing there in the middle of the room. He shuffles towards the wall, noticing a door he hadn't seen before as he does so – this one is white. Nearly running, he quickly walks towards it, into the new room, which appears to be a bathroom.

Two minutes later, Newt steps into the shower. He turns on the hot water, making it fall on his bare skin and hair. It is then when the full reality of what is going to happen hits him. It hits him with such a force that he can't help but sit down on the white floor to not fall.

_Oh, my God_, he thinks, burying his fingers in his wet hair.

_They're going to wipe my memory. _

_I'm going to forget everything, everyone, even who I am myself._

Then a really dark thought trickles into his mind, a thought that makes him scared of himself.

_Even death would be better._

He doesn't dare to think anything more, afraid that he is going to drive himself crazy, so he quickly turns off the water and hurries out of the shower.

He shoots into the white shirt and light sweatpants that they have laid out for him and sprints out of the bathroom. Less than a second later, he jumps under the sheets of the nearest bed.

Suddenly scared of everything, but not knowing why, he hides under the white cloth, like a young child that is scared of the monsters that appear in the dark.

He listens to the airless silence, until two muffled voices come into his ears; two people are talking, probably just outside the door.

Newt listens carefully to hear what they are saying.

**Aww, poor Newtie! He's so scared. But don't worry, that'll be over soon :)**

**(Oh my gosh, that was a really dark remark! Woops.)**

**Okay, bye!**


	42. Soldier

"Oh, come on, don't be so childish!" Lauren shouts at the guard that is standing in front of the door. "Just let me in."

"No," the guard replies again, with his deep voice. "I will not let you in. You must leave the subjects alone."

_Damn it. _

_I'm never going to get to Newt when this guy is guarding the room._

Lauren sighs, trying another method.

"Dude, I _work_ here!" she shouts at him. "You see this uniform? I'm from WICKED, too!"

She looks at him, pouting.

"Please, just let this little girl in. I just wanna say goodbye to my boyfriend, before you start experimenting on him. That's all."

The guard shakes his head again, but this time, he is hesitating. Lauren piles it up a little more.

"Please, let me in. I won't do anything bad, I won't help him escape, I promise," she says, looking the guard in the eyes. He sighs deeply.

"All right, then," he growls. "But if I catch you helping him to get out, I won't hesitate to shoot. Do you understand that?"

Lauren nods, and the guard types in a code on a screen on the left door. A click sounds, and the guard pushes one of the doors open. Lauren quickly steps into the room. The door closes behind her.

She immediately sees Newt. He is sitting on the nearest bed, his hair wet and ruffled. He looks so sad and confused, it makes Lauren's heart hurt.

"Oh, Newt," she says quietly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I'm so sorry for you. I wish I could do something to help you, but I can't."

Newt nods.

"I know that," he says, his voice soft. "I only have to wait for a couple of minutes, and then it will all be over. It's just..."

He sighs, looking into Lauren's eyes.

"I'm scared, Lauren."

"Oh, Newt," Lauren whispers again.

She wraps her arms around him, knowing that she wouldn't be able to find the right words to comfort him, and that she is scared, too, because they are going to lose each other and there is nothing she can do about it. The horrible mix of fear, sadness and frustration makes tears leak from her eyes.

Before she realizes what she is doing, she starts to sing, her voice sounding choked, but she doesn't care about it; she will do everything to comfort him, the perfect boy in her arms.

_I'll get it, if you need it_

_I'll search, if you can't see it_

_You're thirsty, I'll be rain_

_You get hurt, I'll take your pain_

_I know you don't believe it_

_But I said it, and I still mean it_

_When you heard what I told you_

_When you get worried, I'll be your soldier_

Newt doesn't respond. He doesn't ask her when she heard the song before, or why she suddenly starts to sing, like the people in a Disney movie. He only holds her even tighter, his shaking breath tickling the back of Lauren's neck.

"I'm scared, Lauren," he whispers again. "What if we never see each other again? And _if_ we meet again, what if I don't recognize you?"

"Shh," Lauren hushes gently. "Remember what we said yesterday? We will see each other again. And I promise you that. When you need me, I'll be there. If I have to blow up the world to get to you, I will do that. I'll do anything to make sure we will meet again."

Newt doesn't respond; he probably either doesn't know what to say or he is too nervous to speak. Unfortunately, their last moment together gets interrupted by the guard from just.

Lauren wants to hit him in the face. With a chair or something.

"I'm sorry, girl," the guard says from the doorway. "You have to get out. The doctors want to take him with them."

"Give me a second," Lauren shouts back over her shoulder.

Newt is already starting to let go of her, but she grips hold of his hands.

"Newt," she whispers.

He looks up. He looks so scared, so incredibly scared, it feels like Lauren's heart nearly splits in half.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

And that was it.

Biting her lip, she stands up and runs out of the room, not able to control her feelings even for one more second. She already starts to cry before she is out of the room.

Struggling to try to run, hide her face and cry at the same time, she nearly crashes into a several people that are standing in front of the double doors.

_They are going to take him with them_, Lauren realizes. _They are the ones that are going to wipe Newt's memory._

She resists the urge to beat them all to the ground – she isn't strong for that anyway – and keeps running.

She can't handle it to be close to Newt anymore; it will only make the 'goodbye' harder.

Even though she has said that she is never going to say that.

**I was thinking of this scene from the beginning, because I wanted to use 'Soldier' (from Gavin DeGraw) in this story. Now I've finally written the 'Chapter With The Song', and I broke my own heart with it :'(**


	43. Only Shadows Left

Newt gulps difficultly when he sees the small group of WICKED people in white uniforms walk in.

_Oh, no. _

_They are going to take me with them._

Now that everything is so close, he only wants to hide somewhere and cry his eyes out of his head. But instead of that, he tries to stop his hands from shaking and stands up.

The redheaded woman walks towards him. Newt involuntarily notices that she is not looking as harsh as the others; her eyes are kind, maybe even sorry.

"H-Hello," Newt says, trying to hide how scared he is, but failing miserably.

"Hello, Newt," the woman responds with her clear voice. "Would you mind lying down?"

She gestures at the bed that the doctors are dragging with them, and even though she politely asked him the question, Newt feels that it is an order. He nods and walks towards the bed, the people in white uniforms stepping away to not stand in his way.

As soon as Newt has lied down on the bed – he would like to fight his way out of here, but he feels like he could be throwing up every moment – something pricks in his arm.

A syringe.

He lets out a startled yelp and tries to move away, but it feels like his limbs don't listen to his brain. He can't move.

"All right, back to the operating room," the woman shouts to the other WICKED people.

Immediately, the group starts to move. They pull the bed Newt is lying on with them, the small wheels rattling on the floor.

Newt can only see the lamps on the ceiling. He can't move his head to look at something else. The bright light is giving him a headache, but he doesn't dare to close his eyes.

The sick feeling in his stomach becomes worse every second, and he wishes more than ever that he could be somewhere else.

Then the group moves into another room. Newt knows that because the ceiling is white here; it was soft green in the hallways.

The woman's voice gives another order to the doctors.

"Lie him down on the table," she says.

Newt feels several strong hands grab him – two pair behind his shoulders and two pair under his legs – and he gets put on a hard table. He looks right into a bright lamp, but the light immediately gets blocked by the faces that are floating above him. They are all half hidden between greenish masks.

All those eyes staring at Newt scare him, but he doesn't want to close his eyes, because he wants to see what is happening.

"Are you sure you want to do this one, too?" someone on his left asks someone else. "Shouldn't we let him live with the other Cranks?"

Newt forgets his fear for a tiny, confused moment.

_Crank? _

_What? _

_Am I a Crank? _

_Why didn't I know this?_

The woman – it has to be the one that has been with him the whole time, for there were no other women in the group – responds, her voice on the edge of snapping, to Newt's surprise.

"No. He is the Glue. Without him, no blueprint," she says to the man.

The man sighs.

"All right. You're the boss. Let's start, then."

The words send a new wave of agony through Newt's body.

_They're going to start. _

_I'm going to lose my memory._

Something pricks in his arm, again, and this time, the world starts to rotate. In the middle of the blurry room, a strange-looking mask floats above his face.

Newt squeezes his eyes shut against the dizziness. He tries to think of one memory, something important, to grab and to never let go, even though he knows that he can't keep that memory.

_Lauren. _

_Lauren. _

_Think of a moment with Lauren._

He chooses the moment when they first met, in the classroom, when Newt needed a pen and Lauren lent him one. He involuntarily realizes that he never gave that pen back. And he'll probably never get the chance to do that.

Something – probably the mask that he just saw – is put on his face. He can feel the sharp edges dig in the skin around his mouth and nose.

Every time he breathes in, it feels like he gets swallowed by darkness, piece by piece.

The woman's voice comes into his ears. She is shouting something to someone, something that rings a bell in the back of Newt's mind, but he is too busy holding the memory of Lauren that he pushes the bell away.

"Wipe them, Dan," the woman says.

_My memories. _

_She is talking about my memories._

A horrible pain flashes through his spine, up to his head, and Newt feels that he is really going to pass out, now. But no matter how bad he is feeling, he can still hear the last words before the darkness gulps him down whole.

"Good luck, Newt."

He is so startled by the woman's voice that he lets the memory of Lauren slip away.

The doctors' murmur disappears. And that is the last thing he will know from his previous life.

Now there are only shadows left.

**It's done. Newt's memories are wiped. It's done, and there is no going back.**

**I'm sad.**


	44. Names, Food, and Warmth

Grass.

The first thing he sees, is grass.

He is lying on the ground, on his belly, his left arm uncomfortably folded under his body, his head feeling like someone is banging on it with a hammer.

His skull feels empty, like it used to be filled with things, but those are roughly cut out of his brain.

When he looks up, a strand of blond hair falls in front of his eyes. Is it his? Does he have blond hair?

Suddenly really startled, he struggles up, immediately hit by a wave of dizziness that causes him to fall again.

Shit, he hadn't remembered what hair colour he has!

Desperate now, he quickly searches in his mind, only to find out that he doesn't remember anything.

He doesn't know who he is, what he looks like, not even his age.

Does he even know his own name?

Immediately, a word pops up in his brain.

_Newt. _

_My name is Newt._

He waits for more information to come, but the empty shelves in his mind stay empty. Two tears leak from his eyes as he squeezes them shut.

_All right, Newt. _

_You're going to be fine. _

_Just try to stay calm._

He can hear the voice in his head, but he doesn't even know whose voice it is. It is driving him crazy, and he does exactly what he told himself not to do: panicking.

Jumping up, he buries his fingers in his hair and pulls, not even knowing why. He screams and cries until his throat burns. Then he stops, surprised and realizing that he just heard his own voice for the first time he can remember.

It is unstable, sometimes high and sometimes low, and so familiar but so strange at the same time. It is _that_ realization, hearing his own voice, that calms him down, though he doesn't know why.

He lets go of his hair – a couple of blond hairs are stuck between his sweaty fingers – and looks around.

It must be around noon; the sun is standing high in the sky, making the air feel warm, but not too warm. The place where Newt is standing, is a big, square place, about as big as a couple of football fields. It is surrounded by four high walls, each with an opening in the middle. There is a house, and a forest, and Newt can hear the sounds of animals behind him.

He looks down at himself, discovering that he is wearing a blue shirt and black shorts, and ugly, plastic flip-flops. He is quite long, he sees, and – thank God – quite muscular.

Not wanting to spend too much time looking at himself – it must look really weird – he looks up again. This time, he turns around, and discovers something he hadn't seen before; behind him, next to the closed shutters of something in the ground, are other boys.

They are still lying on the ground, eyes closed, most of them in uncomfortable-looking positions, just like Newt when he woke up. All of the boys are different; big and small, thin and fat, black and white, and with short hair, long hair, or something between that. Despite that, Newt has the feeling that they are all the same. They are all in this place, together.

He wonders if the others have their memories wiped, too.

As if it is to answer his question, one of the boys jumps up, startling Newt. The boy holds the back of his head with a painful face, frowning and looking around. When he sees Newt, he walks towards him, nearly running.

"It happened to you, too, isn't it?" the boy – a muscular, Asian guy – asks.

Newt nods, knowing exactly what the boy means.

"Yes. I can't remember anything, only my name."

"And that is?" the boy asks, startling Newt with his impatient tone. He flinches involuntarily.

The other boy sighs, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

"I'm sorry, it's just..." He cuts himself off. "Whatever. Okay, so, what's your name?"

His tone is friendlier now, and Newt would swear that he has heard that voice before.

"Newt," he says. "What's yours?"

"Minho."

"Do you think that the others have lost their memories, too?"

"Probably."

"What happened to us?"

"Do I look like a walking encyclopedia?"

"No."

"Then please stop asking questions."

Their conversation gets cut off by a loud scream, and Newt doesn't have to look to know that another boy has woken up. Now it seems like someone has pushed a button to let all of the boys wake up; suddenly, everyone is struggling up, some are screaming, some are crying, some are throwing up.

Newt knows that they are all as confused as he is, but he notices that he doesn't feel as hopeless as just. He wants to say something to Minho, probably something sarcastic, but he immediately forgets that when he sees that the boy has walked away. He is walking towards the wooden house.

It takes Newt only seconds to catch up with him.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asks.

Minho shrugs, still walking.

"Well, I guess we're gonna have to be here for a while, so I just wanted to discover this place," he says. "Looking for food or weapons or something. Or good shoes."

Newt looks at Minho's feet, discovering that the other boy is wearing the same flip-flops as he does. He nods, agreeing with him; those plastic things already make Newt's feet hurt, even though he has only been wearing them for ten minutes. Without saying anything more, they walk further towards the house.

Minho immediately walks around the corner of the house, past the door; when Newt asks him what he is going to do, the other boy responds that he saw another door and that he wants to look what it is for. Shaking his head, Newt goes after him.

A couple of seconds later, both boys are standing in front of a wooden door, hastily painted with dark green paint. Minho lies his hand on the doorknob, pushing the door open. When the sun lights up what is inside the room, Newt feels his mouth drop open.

All of the shelves on the walls are filled with weapons.

"Wow," Minho says, speaking out exactly what is on Newt's mind. He walks inside, and Newt follows his lead, nearly tripping over the doorstep. He stands in the middle of the room, just looking around, while Minho is ferreting in a cardboard box that he found.

"Yes!" he suddenly shouts.

Newt turns around.

"Did you find something?" he asks.

Minho grins and stands up, holding up two pair of running shoes.

"Here, catch," he says, tossing one pair of the shoes at Newt, who quickly kicks the flip-flops through the room and puts the running shoes on. They fit perfectly.

Happy with this new improvement, he tucks the shoelaces in the shoes and stands up.

Minho is already done, and he runs a small circle through the room to test out his new shoes. When he is done doing that, he jogs towards Newt.

"Let's go," he says, already walking outside.

"Wait... Where are you going?" Newt asks, a little confused.

The other boy turns around.

"I would like to see what's behind those walls," he says.

Newt nods, not able to hide his curiosity.

"All right," he says. "I'm coming with you."

Without spilling any more words, the two boys run towards the opening in the nearest wall.

That evening, all of the boys are sitting in a circle, on the ground, in the middle of the place – Minho has decided to call it the Glade. A huge campfire is lighting up the faces of the boys with an orange glow.

Newt is sitting there, silently; partly because he is too overwhelmed by the discovery that he and Minho did that afternoon – who would expect that the Glade is the middle of a gigantic maze? –, and partly because he is too busy eating the soup that one of the boys has made from the food that they have found. The Glade appears to be completely put in order, from the fact that there is food and weapons to the beds that are neatly made.

The loud sound of something growling pulls Newt out of his thoughts. He listens to it for a moment before he shrugs and puts another spoonful soup in his mouth.

He has been hearing that sound every now and then, since the openings in the walls have closed. It makes him wonder what kind of horrible animal is trapped in the maze, but it is not his biggest concern; whatever it is, can't get to them.

Newt looks up from his bowl when a guy named Nick – who has taken charge – stands up from his place. The boy next to Newt, a kid with the name Winston, bends over to him.

"Oh, no," he whispers amused. "He's gonna give us a pep talk."

Exactly at that moment, Nick's deep voice rumbles through the Glade. Winston had been right; he is indeed going to give them a pep talk.

"Gladers," Nick shouts. "This morning we woke up with nothing. Nothing, but ourselves, each other, and the clothes on our bodies. Now look at what we've achieved already. We know each other's names, we've got something to eat, we've got warmth from the fire."

Their 'leader' wildly gestures at everything he enumerates, making most of the boys snicker. But Newt can see that Nick is deadly serious.

"Who knows, what tomorrow will bring?" he continues, still with his voice raised. "Today, we've got names, food, and warmth, and maybe tomorrow, we'll find a way out of here."

Nick waits a moment until the applause and the shouting has stopped.

"So I advice you," he says, "to go to sleep early, tonight. I want everyone to go into the Maze, looking for a way out, tomorrow."

He flops down on his spot again and continues to eat his soup.

Newt thinks about what their leader has said. It may not be completely true – they didn't wake up with nothing, they had got the Glade and everything inside it – but Nick's speech has actually made Newt feel better. Maybe they will indeed find a way out, tomorrow.

And, for the first time he can remember, he smiles.

What Newt doesn't know, is that a certain, brown-haired girl is looking at him, at that moment, and that she knows that they will not find a way out.

They will never find a way out of the Maze, not until a girl named Teresa gets sent up to trigger the Ending. Until that time, it will only get worse.

But Newt doesn't know.

He doesn't know anything.

**The last chapter! Only the epilogue is left now, and I'll be posting it right after this!**


	45. Epilogue

TWO YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS AND THREE DAYS LATER, HALF PAST FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON

"Oh, damn it!"

The furious yelling of a girl echoes through the corridors of WICKED's Headquarters.

A really, really annoyed girl, that is, who has just spilled her cup of coffee on her white uniform.

Someone dashes around the corner, a brown-haired boy who could be her brother, but he isn't.

"Lauren?" he shouts, immediately stopping when he sees what happened to her.

"Dropped your cup again, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did, Thomas," Lauren growls. "Third time this week."

"If you just would sleep a little more..."

Thomas' voice trails off, probably because they both know the reason why Lauren only sleeps four or five hours in a night.

The nightmares about what could happen to Newt are so horrible that she wakes up screaming. Then she just _has_ to get up and see if he is still alive, and when she is in her office at two in the morning, she could just as well begin working, right?

"Thomas, I told you, I_ can't_ sleep a little more," she snaps at him. "Nightmares, remember? Boyfriend in a dangerous maze? He can't remember me? Does it ring a bell in your stupid head?"

"Yeah," Thomas responds absently, unmoved by her unfriendly tone. "But, anyway, I wasn't looking for you to get into an argument. There is something you might want to see."

Lauren feels her face pale three shades; the last time Thomas said that, something terrible had happened. She immediately forgets the coffee on her pants and follows him, sprinting towards his office.

When they hurl into the small room, Teresa is already sitting on the chair, one hand clasped over her mouth, tears in her eyes.

Lauren's eyes shoot to the screen.

Thomas' beetle blade is settled somewhere in the Maze, about fifteen minutes running away from the Glade, according to the map. What is visible through the camera, makes Lauren frown.

Newt is climbing up the ivy, but that is not Lauren's biggest concern; Newt looks incredibly bad. He is pale, and dried tears have left their traces on his cheeks. He looks like he hasn't slept for over three nights.

Lauren gasps when the realization hits her.

"He's not gonna jump, is he?" she whispers, eyes huge with worry.

She hears Thomas take a deep breath, and she can already guess the answer.

"I'm afraid he is," he says quietly. "Remember what happened to him on Tuesday?"

Lauren nods, still sad and furious at the thought.

Four other Gladers – Billy, Gally, George and the Greenie from this month – had attacked Newt, for absolutely no reason. Gally had been stung, and he had convinced his friends and the Greenie to 'get rid of the faint-hearted shucks'.

They got into the weapons room, some way.

The attack was so unfair; four strong boys with knives attacked one unarmed boy.

Lauren couldn't bear to watch Newt cry out in pain when Gally threw the first knife and hit him in the shoulder. She would have run into the Maze all by herself to stop them if Thomas hadn't stopped her first.

He told her that this was part of the experiment, that she should just let it happen if it was meant to happen, and Lauren screamed at him that he was a coward, and asked him what happened to the Thomas who was like a brother to Newt, who would do everything to protect him.

Thomas had remained silent.

Luckily – thank God – the boys couldn't kill Newt, like Gally meant to.

Nick, Alby and Minho got into the room just in time to stop the four boys. None of Newt's injuries was really serious, but the mental damage was bad enough to make Lauren want to cry all day.

Newt didn't dare to sleep anymore, scared that Gally would get into his room again. He didn't trust anyone anymore – he really thought that George was his friend, and now he had tried to kill him. He got more irritated every day, partly because he didn't sleep, and partly because he didn't trust anyone, and apparently, he has finally given up that terrible way of living.

Lauren watches in shock as Newt climbs higher and higher, stopping to catch his breath every now and then.

"Please, don't," Lauren mutters under her breath. "Please, don't do it. Please, don't die. Please, don't."

But her desperate whispering doesn't make Newt stop climbing. He only stops when he is about halfway up the high wall, five metres from the concrete ground.

Lauren can see him gulp difficultly when he looks down. She taps some buttons on the keyboard, partly to make the beetle blade move to get a better sight, and partly because she wants to hide that her hands are shaking.

The ticking of the small robot's metal feet on the top of the concrete wall makes Newt look up. New tears have leaked from his eyes, now streaming down his face.

After squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, he looks right into the beetle blade's camera.

"Dear Creators," he says, his voice hoarse and bitter, "I hope you can see what I'm going to do now. This is what happens when you put children in a maze."

Lauren watches in horror when the boy she loves the most, lets go of the ivy and jumps down.

He smacks into the floor with a terrible thump, and Lauren would swear that she hears something break.

Probably her heart.

_Newt is dead. _

_He has just committed suicide._

Lauren can't imagine that Newt would do something like that to himself, but he did.

She expects herself to cry, to scream, to kill someone, but she doesn't feel anything. It feels like she is dreaming, like she is having another nightmare, and that she is going to wake up in a few minutes. Like she is going to run towards her office, crying, only to see Newt sleeping peacefully.

But even after pinching her arm – which usually works –, she doesn't wake up.

_This is real. _

_Newt is dead, for real._

She just can't believe it.

She doesn't believe it.

Newt has climbed up about five metres from the ground, the same height as Lauren climbed up when she tried to kill herself.

Lauren didn't die either, did she?

She just passed out for a while.

Letting out a relieved sigh, she leans backwards in her chair. At least she has a little bit of hope, now.

She makes Thomas' beetle blade truckle towards Newt, but when it is about three metres away from him, Newt suddenly gasps for air.

He rolls himself on his side, doubling over to be able to breathe again. He squeezes his eyes shut, quietly whispering something.

"No...This is not... what I wanted..."

Then he startles the three teenagers in the office with an animalistic cry, which echoes between the walls. The sound will surely follow Lauren in her nightmares. She can hear exactly how Newt is feeling; angry, scared, sad and hurt.

Feeling like her heart splits into a three parts, she watches Newt struggle up to a sitting position. His face twists in pain as he holds his ankle, which is lying in an unnatural angle.

A new fear creeps into Lauren's body.

_What if nobody finds him? _

The doors will close in fifteen minutes. If he gets stuck in the Maze for the night, he surely won't survive, especially when he can't walk.

Lauren spins around to face Thomas.

"Can't we warn someone?" she asks him.

Thomas is a lot better with computers, he surely can find a way to let one of the Gladers know that Newt needs help.

"Lauren," Thomas begins, sighing. "This is all part of the experiment. He has chosen to die himself."

"Oh, shut up," Lauren snaps at him. "When exactly did they brainwash you?"

"Eh, guys," Teresa interrupts them quietly, "there's no need to warn someone anymore."

When Lauren looks at the screen, she sees that Minho has kneeled next to Newt. She tries to focus on their conversation instead of fighting with Thomas.

"Dude, what happened to you?" Minho asks, looking slightly concerned, but quickly hiding that with a joke. "Don't get me wrong, but you look like klunk."

"Well, thanks," Newt growls back. "I feel like klunk, too. How would you feel when one of those bloody Grievers attacks you and nearly kills you?"

Lauren frowns at the lie. Why doesn't he just tell Minho the truth?

"Is that what happened?" Minho asks.

His eyes shoot to Newt's hands, which are still clasped around his ankle.

"Can you walk?"

"I don't know," Newt snaps. "But I'm not really in the mood for trying."

"I'm going to get help."

Minho already stands up.

"Try not to get eaten before I come back."

He sprints away.

"No, Minho, please, just leave me here," Newt protests weakly, but Minho only shouts back: "You're crazy, shank!"

Then he disappears around the corner.

Lauren breathes out, though she didn't notice that she was holding her breath.

_Minho is going to get help. _

_It's all going to be all right._

Teresa lies her hand on Lauren's shoulder.

"Come on, Lauren," she says quietly. "We have to go for dinner."

Lauren wants to protest, but when she looks at Newt again, she sees that his mask has fallen for a moment. She can see that he is actually really happy that he is still alive, he is just so shocked that he can't feel it yet.

"Yeah, I'm coming," Lauren absently says to Teresa. "I'll catch up with you, just give me a moment."

When both Thomas and Teresa have walked out of the room, Lauren turns to the screen, looking at Newt.

She wishes that he could hear her when she quietly whispers: "It's all going to be all right."

Then she runs out of the room, after Thomas and Teresa.

And Lauren was right.

Newt just didn't know it yet.

**And this is where this story ends and Dark Days begins!**

**I really hope you enjoyed my story (I enjoyed it a lot, it was fun to write!) and I want to thank my dear readers for reading it until the end, especially NewtnTMR and Machete Girl, because your reviews always put a smile on my face!**

**I'm not sure yet if I'm going to write another story for The Maze Runner, but please keep an eye on my profile!**

**Bye! I hope to see you guys again!**


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